Astronaut
by Zalein
Summary: “I want to be an astronaut,” Danny said automatically.
1. Chapter 1

**Title: **Astronaut

**Author: **Zalein

**Chapters: **10

**Word-count: **23,202

**Genre: **General/Drama

**Characters: **Danny F., Sam M.

**Rating: **T for language.

**Summary: **_"I want to be an astronaut," Danny said automatically._

**Author's Note: **I already have all the chapters typed up and saved on my computer, so no worries about me stopping the story in mid-plot.

* * *

**CHAPTER ONE**

"I want to be an astronaut," Danny said automatically.

The career-counselor put her clasped hands on her desk, resting her elbows on the polished wooden edge. There was an open folder to one side of her, but Danny couldn't see what was written in it. "That's a very ambitious choice, Mr. Fenton. Are there any particular reasons you have in mind why?"

"Well," Danny said awkwardly, shifting in his seat, "I like science. Being an astronaut would need a lot of that. I think I'd be a mission commander, and that would be a lot of fun. Going into space has been… you know, like a dream to me for years. I'm also good at handling scientific equipment, and stuff." He paused. "Uh, by the way, those beakers I broke in the science lab last year—that was a long-term attack of klutz. I'm better now.

The counselor looked unaffected by his train of thought. "What are your plans for meeting your goal?"

Danny leaned back, thinking. What did she mean by plans? "I, uh, need to finish high-school first," he said slowly, watching her to make sure this was what she meant. When she nodded, he went on. "Then I plan to go to college. After that I'll need to be doing work related to space stuff for at least three years, and then I can send in an application to NASA. If I get accepted, then I'll be there for at least two years of training, and then that's it."

Her penciled eyebrows rose up a few notches. "You've certainly done your research. Do you know what courses you'll be taking in college?" the counselor prompted.

Danny nodded, "Science courses. Mostly astronomy and physics."

Now the counselor looked at the file, putting a hand with long fingernails at one corner and pulling the whole thing towards her. "It says here that you're having a few difficulties with your grades." Danny stared over her shoulder at the bookcase behind her, all too aware of how her tone had changed. Now it was pleasant and careful, the voice of someone dancing around a touchy topic that, unfortunately, needed to be discussed. She paused a little before continuing. "You're going to want to bring them up a little over the next couple of years. As things stand now, you may have difficulties getting accepted into the courses you want at whatever college you decide to go to."

"Yeah, my grades stink," Danny said bluntly, uncomfortable but not at all surprised by the information. He'd already been aware of it.

There was the faintest of twitches in her expression, which she smoothed out quickly enough before nodding in agreement. "I wouldn't put it that way, but yes. I have notes from a couple of your teachers that you were doing well for the better part of your freshman year. Can you think of any reason for why things changed?"

Danny didn't fight the deep frown tugging at his mouth. Of course he knew; he just couldn't tell her. "No, not really."

The counselor paused again, looking down at one of the notes at the top of the folder before looking back at him. "Ah," she said. Danny didn't think she looked convinced at all, but he didn't really care. His head was stuffy and aching from staying up several hours more than he should have two nights in a row, and he'd half-expected their session would go in this direction anyway.

"Most students change their majors at some point during their college careers. You might say it's a way of exploring the possibilities, seeing what's right for you. Do you have any alternate career choices in mind, Mr. Fenton?" the counselor asked suddenly.

Danny blinked, before shrugging and saying flippantly. "Well, Mr. Lancer said that anyone who didn't pass the CAT's was destined to work at the Nasty Burger. I knew there was a reason why I always felt drawn there. It was destiny already at work!" He smiled and laughed a little but the counselor's face didn't so much as twitch. Danny stopped grinning, scratching the back of his head.

"Actually, your CAT scores are a great deal better than one might have expected. You spent a week's worth of after school detentions studying for it, did you not? Well, it seems to have paid off."

Danny looked surprised. "I didn't know the scores were out, yet."

"They're in the mail," she said. "The school also gets a transcript of your results. It's for their records."

"Oh. What score did I get?"

The lady obligingly paged through her file before selecting a single page from it, handing it to him. Danny's eyes searched the paper for a few seconds before he finally found the score. His expression brightened, though it was also surprised. "… Wow!"

"'Wow indeed, Mr. Fenton," the counselor agreed. This time she did smile. "Clearly you have the potential to do better in school if you apply yourself." Danny didn't look up. "Are you sure there isn't some reason why you haven't been able to improve your grades? Perhaps you could get a tutor. There's a note here that says you haven't been turning in a lot of your homework. Fixing that problem would be a definite improvement."

"Yeah," said Danny, "I'll work on that."

There was the sound of a bell, signaling that it was time for lunch for most of the classes. Danny looked up at it, but the counselor hadn't moved so he didn't stand.

She saw his glance. "Just a moment, and then we'll be through," she assured him. "I just need to ask you again. Do you have any ideas for what you'd do if you weren't accepted into NASA?"

Danny put the page with his CAT scores back on the desk. While the counselor put it away he said, "I'd apply again, and if I didn't make it that time, I'd apply again."

"And if it still fell through?"

Danny shrugged. "I'd probably wind up working on the family business."

"Ah, yes, Fentonworks." Danny's family was famous throughout the city for obvious reasons. He'd have been surprised if she hadn't known the ghost hunters' business' name. "Are you interested in ghosts for a career, Mr. Fenton?"

Danny shrugged again. "I know about them. My parents are always talking about them, and I know how the stuff works better than I know almost anything else." An idea suddenly occurred to him, and he crooked a grin at her, eyes twinkling with humor. "You might say it's in my blood."

The counselor pushed her wide glasses a little higher up on her nose, unmoved by his amusement. "I would recommend you look closely at that choice as a career option, Daniel. You need to bring your grades up one way or another, but this ghost-hunting option seems a little more practical, as well as available."

Danny's grin faded, and he felt his mood quickly turning sour. "Being an astronaut is practical," he said defensively.

"Mister Fenton, considering that out of the thousands of people that apply every two years—"

"NASA only chooses a hundred people for the space program?" Danny finished at the same time she did, making her blink in surprise. "Yeah, I knew that," he said, looking away.

"Oh. Well, considering that fact, you must admit that the chances of your being accepted would be slim no matter what your grades were."

"It keeps coming down to my grades, doesn't it," Danny said, rising to his feet. "Look, I'll try harder to bring them up, but I already knew that I needed to and I don't need you to tell me again. Are we done yet? I'm late for lunch."

The counselor closed the file, pushing it to one side again and folding her hands together. "Yes, I believe we're done here. Enjoy your lunch," she said, flashing him a professionally polite smile.

"Yeah, thanks," he said, already on his way out. "Uh, you too."

* * *

Sam and Tuck had saved him a place in line, and he caught up with them just in time.

"How did it go?" Sam asked, putting her tray on the counter while the lunch lady served the boy in front of her.

"Kind of annoying," said Danny, making his tone light as he could. "She talked about my grades the entire time."

"Yuck. After a meeting like that I'd guess you've lost your appetite," Said Tuck, lifting the two trays he was carrying. "That's handy, since now I can use this extra tray here to help me carry—"

Danny reached forward and snagged the second tray. "Hand it over, Tuck. I need my lunch!"

Tuck relinquished it with a grin. "I knew it. Don't worry, Danny, meat solves everything!"

"Yeah," said Sam while looking through the display's glass. "Especially when it's mystery meat—yummy. Bon appetite, you two!"

Tuck groaned and covered his face, and Danny sighed. Then Tucker lowered his hands, eyes still squeezed shut and nose in the air. He sniffed a few times. "Wait a minute! That's not mystery meat I smell, that's cheeseburgers! Sam, how could you lie to us like that!"

Sam smiled sweetly. "Simple. I just talked, and you guys didn't bother checking for yourselves."

"We'll get back at you, Sam. Right, Danny?"

Danny looked up at the sound of his name, seeming a little guilty. "Huh? Uh, I mean, yeah, that's right."

"How are you going to extract vengeance against that fiend when you aren't even listening?" Tucker grumbled, while Sam laughed.

"Sorry, I'm just thinking."

"About what?" asked Sam.

"My grades!" said Danny, as though it were obvious.

"Oh," said Tuck, unsure of how to reply. The line of people moved, and he reached to put some food on his tray while his friends did the same.

"Yeah," said Danny, sounding a little glum again. "I mean, what with all this ghost stuff going on, I barely have time to sleep, let alone go to school and do homework and everything… It's like ghosts have taken over my life." He said that last part in a mumble, not really intending anyone else to hear. They got to the cash register, then were soon heading to their usual table with Sam in the lead.

"Sorry, man," Tuck said sympathetically. "I don't know what to say about that."

"Yeah," said Sam. "I mean, Tuck and I are barely holding on as it is."

Danny blinked and looked up at them in sudden hope. "But you guys are still doing it, right? How are you managing that, anyway?"

"Well, we study a lot on the bus," Sam said. She glanced around as they sat down to make sure no-one was within hearing range. Only then did she continue. "There's also the fact that we're not going on all the ghost-patrols you are, so we're able to stay awake in class."

"Yeah, seriously, dude." Tucker pointed his cheeseburger at Danny, talking around a mouthful. "You should cut back on that. The city's not going to fall apart because you got a good night's sleep."

"It might," Danny retorted, taking a bite of his own cheeseburger. Unlike Tucker, he chewed quickly before swallowing. "I mean, remember that guy who got caught up in one of Technus' attempts to take over the world last week? That car just barely missed crushing him, and his arm got crushed by debris. I could have stopped it if I'd been there sooner."

Sam frowned and swallowed her mouthful of salad. "That wasn't your fault, Danny. Not only was that guy not evacuating the area like he should have, even Technus hadn't realized that car would land that far. He looked just as surprised as the next person."

"Yeah, maybe," said Danny, not entirely convinced. "I still think I could have done something, though."

"What were you doing at the time?" Tucker said diplomatically.

"I was sleeping. According to the Fenton Portal activity log he probably passed through at around three in the morning."

"Then how on earth were you supposed to know he was loose?" Tuck pointed out. "It's not like you guys have an alarm on the Fenton Portal or anything, and you've been tired all the time, lately. You've gotta sleep, dude."

"I guess," said Danny, and this time he looked a little better.

"I agree with Tucker," Sam said, spearing some lettuce with her fork. "Ghost hunting's important, but you've got to draw the line somewhere."

"Yeah, but where? Am I supposed to tell ghosts 'Sorry guys, I can't fight right now, can you come back when I'm done with today's essay or when I'm more awake'? Somehow I don't think they'll buy it."

"Maybe you can set a schedule for your homework," Tuck said thoughtfully, hand straying towards his PDA.

"Nah, I'm fine," Danny said quickly, clearly remembering the Purpleback Gorilla incident. "I'll just have to try extra hard tonight and tomorrow morning on the way to school."

"Aren't you always too tired in the morning, though?" Sam pointed out.

"I'll find a way," Danny said, with more confidence than he felt.

"I hope so," she said.

Danny hoped so, too.

* * *


	2. Chapter 2

**Title: **Astronaut

**Author: **Zalein

**Total Chapters: **10

**Word-count: **23,202

**Genre: **General/Drama

**Characters: **Danny F., Sam M.

**Rating: **T for language.

**Summary: **_"I want to be an astronaut," Danny said automatically._

**Author's Note: **I already have all the chapters typed up and saved on my computer. I'll be posting them one at a time, about once a week. : ) Enjoy today's biiiig fight scene!

By the way, I forgot to mention it last chapter that all these stories were beta-read by the awesome Burenda. Thank you!

* * *

**CHAPTER TWO**

_Several hours later…_

Danny tiptoed through the eerily silent mall, staying as close to darkened glass walls as he dared. The ghost sense that had led him this far was now being irritatingly vague in its direction. All he could really do was listen hard and keep his eyes open, which brought him to where he now was: wandering around a closed mall in the middle of the night, searching for a ghost he didn't even know what looked like.

He suddenly swiveled around at a distant noise, staring hard in the direction it had come from. He stayed stock-still, waiting to see if the sound would repeat itself, before he gave up on that and crept invisibly past the stores.

He'd gotten almost to the end of the hall when he heard another _clank_, and this time he could tell it came from an expensive furniture store across the way. He floated towards it, eyes so wide open that soon they were watering. Now that he was closer he could hear the faint sounds of movement, and he phased through the locked door's glass to go inside. Sounds of rustling fabric reached his ears more clearly now, and he could hear odds and ends being moved and put back into place. He drifted silently behind an old Victorian dresser when he caught his first glimpse of the ghost.

He was a tall, gangly man who looked to be in his mid-thirties. He wore a colorless button up shirt with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and dark slacks that were a little too long for him. Black, unkempt hair had been pulled back from his face and scraped into a stubby little ponytail. His Adam's apple jutted out, and one hand held a smokeless cigarette, while the other held a very professional looking camera. He was facing away from Danny, staring hard at the shadows cast by his glow on a coat rack that was shaped like a tree. Every line of his form was concentrating on what he was doing. After a moment he whisked the cigarette into his mouth and brought his camera up with both hands. Then he crouched with painstaking care and slowly brought the camera to his face. Danny waited for something dramatic and terrible to happen, getting ready to leap out from behind the couch.

The camera's flash-bulb momentarily turned the room white. Little gears and mechanisms in the camera briefly whirred before falling silent, and the photographer fiddled with some unseen buttons before adjusting his position. Danny watched him take another anticlimactic picture before the boy straightened up and walked around the couch. If the photographer noticed Danny's appearance in his line of view, he didn't show it.

Danny coughed a little, and when he still got no reaction he asked, "You're taking pictures of a coat rack?"

The photographer jumped in surprise and clutched his camera to himself, whirling around. He frowned intensely at Danny with wide eyes, looking like a dog found standing protectively over a Frisbee it had just stolen. Danny grinned tiredly back at him and lifted a hand. "Hi."

"Ah, hello," the taller man said after a moment. "Who are you?"

"I'm Danny Phantom," he said, "and I'm wondering what you're doing out in this mall at—" Danny glanced around until his eyes found a clock, "twelve-thirty at night. I have a test tomorrow, and all the studying in the world's not going to help me if I sleep through it all."

"Go home, kid. I'm busy here." His eyes had dimmed in disinterest, but he didn't turn away.

"Yeah, you look busy," Danny said, walking towards the coat rack to inspect it. It looked perfectly normal. "So what are you doing? Just taking pictures?"

The glowing man frowned, straightening a little more and looking irritated. "Yes," he ground out. "And it's a very delicate and complicated process, so if you would be so kind…" He gestured a long-fingered hand towards the door, frowning when Danny simply folded his arms and turned towards him.

"Sorry, but I can't do that. You're probably going to try and take over the mall or possess the coat rack or something, and I need to be here to stop you when you do."

The photographer's eyes narrowed and his grip on his camera tightened. "I don't answer to bratty little kids like you. Go home to your mommy, before she finds out you're out past your bedtime."

Danny held up his hands as though to placate him. "Hey, I've never seen you before and you're probably new to this area, so I'll give you fair warning." Danny smiled a little. "I've gotten really good at stopping ghosts and putting them back in the ghost zone. So either you're going back to the ghost zone, or you convince me somehow that you're not going to try anything."

The photographer's eyes narrowed further, his jaw twitching. "I'm going to finish taking my pictures, brat. Your presence distracts me, so go on, move along before I disappear you forever."

"Isn't that kind of cocky for someone who doesn't know who he's dealing with?" Danny asked, smile fading a little as he tensed for a fight.

The man's glare became an unsettling, thin-lipped grin. "I could say the same for you, brat," he replied, lifting his camera and falling into a surprisingly smooth crouch. Danny frowned as the flash-bulb was aimed at him, getting ready to close his eyes against the light. The photographer went on as he calmly adjusted the lenses' focus, "I'd say you're good for… four full-shots, at most."

Danny took a nervous step to one side. The camera followed him. "What are you talking abo—" The flash-bulb went off and Danny silently cursed as spots danced before his eyes. Suddenly he felt the energy rush out of him, bowing his shoulders and almost toppling him over in exhaustion. The moment only lasted a few seconds before he straightened up again, but he was thoroughly unsettled by then. "W-what the heck—what was that?!"

Burning green eyes surveyed him intently. "Hmm… more life to you than I'd thought… Who did you say you were again?"

Danny glared, assuming an aggressive stance. Was it just him, or was he more tired than he had been before? "I asked you a question first! What did your camera just do to me?!"

"As a photographer it is my duty to capture moments of life," he answered smoothly, "and to preserve them in the eternal bounds of film for others to see. I may have died not so long ago, but…" A flicker of emotion passed across his face, and Danny had just enough of a glimpse to identify pain and remorse before it was gone. "… at least now I can carry out my duty in a more literal sense than I ever could alive."

"What do you mean literal sense?" Danny asked warily.

Instead of answering, the photographer looked back at the coat rack. "A pity—the artist put so little spirit into his art..." He lifted his camera and took another picture of it.

Thoroughly bewildered and unsettled, Danny conjured a glowing orb of green between his hands. "Alright, whoever you are—tell me right now what it is you're trying to say, or I'll make your trip back to the Ghost Zone a lot harder than it has to be."

"I strongly doubt you can make me go anywhere, brat," the artist replied snappishly, mood swinging from smugly enigmatic to waspishly irritable like the pendulum on an old clock.

"Try me!" Danny replied, getting ready to send the glowing ectoplasm at him. Just then, however, a movement in his peripheral vision caught his attention, and he lowered his hand a fraction in surprise.

The coat rack had vanished, gone without a sound. In fact, if he hadn't been looking in its general direction when it disappeared he wouldn't have even noticed its absence. Danny stared at the shadows left in the carpet from the faint indentations the rack had left, and the photographer followed his gaze.

The man smirked, mood having shifted yet again and his tone practically boastful. "Ah, yes. You see, brat, in most cases the idea of cameras being able to steal someone's spirit or soul is ridiculous muttering, spread through ignorance. In my case, however…" he trailed off and patted his camera almost fondly, glancing up at Danny. "That's what I meant when I said I could now follow my duty in a more literal sense: I capture moments of people's lives… and put them in here."

Danny stared blankly at him for a moment before it sank in. "_Hold it_ a second—you're saying you just stole a piece of me and put it in there? A piece of my _soul_!?"

The man's teeth glinted faintly in his smile. "In a manner of speaking. At the moment of each picture being taken you'll feel more and more tired, and for a longer time than you did just now. When enough pieces have been whittled away…" He snapped his fingers, looking horribly fascinated by what he was saying. "And flash! You'll be gone."

"Just like that? That coat rack's gone forever?" Danny asked apprehensively, mentally trying to plan out some way he could avoid the camera's flash. Hiding behind furniture might work, but then it was either stay there until the photographer stepped around or try to dodge when he moved somewhere else.

"Not forever," the man admitted, looking down at his camera with fleeting disappointment. All too soon the smug smirk was back. "At least, not if the film's destroyed before it can be developed."

Danny nodded. "By the way, why are you standing here telling me all your camera's secrets and stuff?"

Like flipping a switch the smirk was gone, replaced by a narrow-eyed glare. "I'm setting the mood for the picture, as well as deciding what angle is best to use. You're too skinny, truth be told." The glare turned thoughtful. "If I took it from a direction where those lamps and counters were behind you, though, they would exaggerate the differences and—"

Danny interrupted him, "One last question before we start fighting, camera-man. You just took a picture of me, is there any way I can get the piece you took back?"

'Camera-man' scowled at having been interrupted. "Wait and find out." He lifted his camera. Danny blindly threw his ball of ectoplasm and dove behind the couch he'd been hiding behind before, escaping to safety just as the room turned stark white and black.

He heard the artist curse, and when he realized that the sound was closer than it had been before he jumped up from behind the couch and flung himself at the photographer, as though intending to tackle him in a way he never could on a football field.

Unfortunately for Danny, the camera's flash went off the instant he left his sanctuary, and he was engulfed in exhaustion before he'd crossed half the distance to the photographer. A strange numbness went up and down his limbs, like they'd suddenly decided that an emergency mid-battle nap was in order without consulting Danny. It was as hard to move as though he'd been swimming in peanut-butter. This time the moments lasted a few seconds, during which the photographer stepped to one side with insulting calmness, leaning forward for a close-up of Danny's shocked features.

"Smile," Camera-Man said, grinning predatorily behind his camera. Just as feeling was starting to return to Danny's limbs the flash-bulb went off again, leaving Danny so utterly exhausted that he didn't even notice the dawning feeling of panic.

It took Danny a couple of seconds to remember how to breathe. "Let…" he gasped, "let me go!"

The photographer ignored his words, standing up and pacing slowly around him, staring down at him like a hunter would at a freshly killed faun. Triumph was lending a little bounce to his step, and it was clear that he felt no need to even acknowledge the fact that Danny was still alive.

His arms felt like tons of concrete, and his elbows felt like jelly, but still Danny struggled to push himself up, to move, anything. Slowly he felt strength returning to him, but it wasn't fast enough. Worse yet, apparently excited by the new pose and excellent angles he was getting, the photographer quickly knelt a couple of feet away and crouched low, lining up for another shot.

Danny looked at him, and he suddenly realized that if he didn't do something now he might not _have_ a chance later to try again. He summoned a panicked spurt of strength he hadn't known he had and flung a shot of ectoplasm at the photographer's careful stance, scrambling away on his elbows and side while his opponent cried out in outrage.

The effects of the pictures were wearing off more, and Danny forced himself to his hands and knees, crawling behind a magnificent chest of drawers with an ornate mirror on top. The entire thing wobbled precariously when he bumped into it, but he managed to get himself to safety just in time. When the room flashed white and black again, he was already hidden in the black.

What he hadn't expected to happen next was for strength to surge back into his body and the photographer to yelp in surprise. The feeling surprised him so much that he overbalanced, and his head snapped up and banged into the oak just in front of him. Clutching one hand to his head, he ignored the hurt as much as he could and jumped to his feet, his ears on full-alert for what the photographer was doing now.

Camera-Man was cursing—quietly. In fact, he sounded absolutely exhausted, and Danny blinked in confusion. The boy cautiously inched around the chest of drawers he was hiding behind to see what was happening, ready to yank himself out of sight at the first glimpse of a camera being aimed.

The photographer was leaning against an armchair, his knees trembling violently. His camera was still in hand, though, and for all that he was struggling just to merely keep a grip on it, Danny yanked himself behind the chest of drawers again.

"Damned little snot-brained brat…" Camera-Man growled, strength coming back with each word. "You're going to regret that…"

"Regret what?" Danny shot back. "Regret somehow having found a way to get back at you even when I'm that tired? Dude, you should be embarrassed that you let me do that. I was crawling, and I _still_ got you!" Of course, it would help his taunts a lot if he had any idea what it is he'd done. He'd managed to hide, the flash had gone off, and then… no, he had no idea what had happened.

Thankfully, the photographer had no idea he didn't know. "You can't hide behind that mirror forever, brat! All I need to do is circle around, and then you'll be defenseless!"

Danny stiffened for a moment, processing that in his mind. Then he glanced up at the mirror attached to the chest of drawers, smiled, and laughed. "Yeah, yeah—unless I just turn the dresser to keep aiming your way, of course." This was suddenly a lot safer than it had been before; now that he had something he could hide behind, he had a way to fight back. If mirrors could reflect the camera's light away from Danny, then maybe they were also reflecting the contraption's power back to Camera-Man himself. That would explain why he was so tired, and if it was true it led him to a whole new, even more interesting train of thought.

Danny heard ghost-man starting to move and he took the Fenton Thermos from its strap on his back, uncapping the cylinder as quietly as possible while he looked around. "So, Camera-Man, do you have any last words?" He spotted what he was looking for and started taking careful aim, watching the photographer trying to stealthily creep his way towards him.

"I'd say you're the one that should be asking yourself that!" the man snapped back. "And my name is not Camera-Man!"

"Well, Camera-dude, you never told me your name, and you're holding a camera."

"And you're wearing a ridiculous hazmat suit and glowing brightly," Camera-Man spat back. "Does that mean I call you Radioacto-boy?"

"No, you call me brat, remember?" Danny pointed out sourly. His opponent was almost in view, just a few more centimeters… "Even if you called me 'Radioacto-boy', it'd still be better than Inviso-Bill." He snorted.

Camera-Man paused, looking faintly incredulous. "Inviso-Bill?" he repeated.

"Yeah. Hey, by the way, I've finally got my last words…"

Camera-Man sounded interested, and Danny could see he was lifting an eyebrow. "Oh, really?" A smile was starting to return to him.

"Yeah." Danny shifted impulsively to the right, fixing his angle and getting a perfect view of the photographer's startled gaze. "Really."

With the chest of drawers between him and Camera-Man, and his back to the dresser, Danny aimed at the extra chest of drawers in front of him and turned the Fenton Thermos on. Like the camera's light had earlier, the blazing thermos-light turned the room black and white. Instead of rebounding back at Danny, though, it bounced off the spare mirror and headed directly for the very unpleasantly surprised photographer, who had no time to raise his camera for even one last attack.

A second later Danny was flicking the switch again, smiling brightly into the sudden darkness. A few seconds later a familiar-looking coat rack started glowing visibly, but the dim light faded, letting it disappear like a distant star going out.

"And my words are, 'Say cheese'."

* * *


	3. Chapter 3

**Title: **Astronaut

**Author: **Zalein

**Total Chapters: **10

**Word-count: **23,202

**Genre: **General/Drama

**Characters: **Danny F., Sam M.

**Rating: **T for language.

**Summary: **_"I want to be an astronaut," Danny said automatically._

**Author's Note: **I already have all the chapters typed up and saved on my computer. I'll be posting them one at a time, about once a week. : ) Enjoy the ride!

Btw, Burenda is awesome and did me a huge favor by betareading this. Thanks, Burenda!

* * *

**CHAPTER THREE**

Danny flew home quickly after that, making sure he was both invisible and intangible while he did. On his way out he saw a security guard talking quickly on his radio, shooting dark looks in the direction the expensive furniture store was, and Danny was glad the fight had ended as soon as it had.

In spite of his satisfaction at a job well done, though, Danny knew it had been luck that things had wrapped themselves up so easily. Now he had to focus on what to do when he got home, and whether or not his absence had been noticed. Things would get sticky if it had been: it was late, and he was supposed to be asleep.

As he flew close to his house he was pleased to note a distinct absence of urgent notes taped to the outside of his windowsill. If he found a note (written by Jazz) he would have had to limp through the front door to make it seem as though he hadn't flown home, but now he could just phase through his window and collapse onto his bed without anyone having ever even known he'd been out. Score! He flopped onto the covers, pushing an open textbook off the bed (he'd fallen asleep studying before his ghost sense had triggered) and tried to relax. True, he'd gotten his energy sucked out multiple times during the fight, so by all rights he should be exhausted. Instead he felt as though he was brimming with energy, and it was hard to ignore.

_Knock knock._

Danny jerked like a startled cat at the sound, stammering out a jumbled reply. Jazz must have understood it, though, because she opened the door. When she saw him she paused, distracted from what she was originally going to say.

"… Danny, you know you're still in ghost form, right?" she said softly, stepping in and closing the door behind her.

Danny bolted upright, and instantly two rings of light appeared. They blazed brightly and moved in opposite directions. "Thanks, Jazz, I can't believe I didn't even notice! I... well, just got back."

"From a ghost fight?" asked Jazz with concern. "You're okay, right? You look a little tense, Danny, do you hurt anywhere?"

Danny shook his head, sinking gingerly into the bedspread as though it were a bed of nails. "Not really. It was a new ghost, but luckily he had a weakness."

"Really? What was it?"

"Mirrors."

"Oh. Well, it's good you found it out in time," she agreed. "If I promise not to correct your spelling, may I read the file you make for him when you're done?"

"Sure, if I'm there when you do," said Danny. It was clear by his expression that he doubted her self control on the matter of spell-checking. "So… did you want something?"

"Mom wanted me to check on you earlier, but you weren't here. I told her you were asleep, but I was a little worried…"

Danny gave her a small, appreciative grin. "I'm fine, Jazz."

Jazz nodded. "Yes, I can see that now. How's your homework coming along?"

He grimaced, sighing a little. "I've got a test and a history map-making thing, both due tomorrow."

"How's all that going? Have you studied enough?" Jazz pressed, folding her spindly arms and watching him intently.

"Well, I don't really get the test equations, but…" Danny lifted his hands in a shrug, the movement jerky as though from a sugar-rush. "I'll figure it out."

"Do you want me to get you up early tomorrow?" Jazz suggested. "You know, to get some extra studying done?"

Danny gave her a pained look, starting to clear the books off his bed without glancing at them. "I, uh, don't think that'll be necessary. I can review in the car."

"It's important for you to start really bringing your grades up, Danny--especially now, considering the recent career counseling you've had," Jazz said calmly. Danny stared at her in surprise, wondering how she'd known about the counseling. Then he remembered that this was Jazz, and that she knew everything that happened at school. She went on, "I'd recommend you get up early anyway so you don't have to wolf down food like you do every morning. That kind of sudden rush of nutrients can't be good for your digestive system, Danny!"

"Okay, Jazz, I'll think about it." He wouldn't, though. Jazz gave him a look telling him she knew he wouldn't, and he hurriedly pretended he didn't see it. "So, g'night, Jazz! See you in the morning and all that!" He gave a little 'shoo'ing motion with one hand, grinning impudently.

Jazz gave him another look at that, but she stepped closer to him and gave him a little hug. (Danny only let himself smile a bit when she couldn't see.) "Goodnight, Danny. Good luck on your test tomorrow."

They pulled apart, and Danny sat down on his bed while Jazz walked to the door. When she was gone Danny stood up again.

Now that it was late and time for bed, what on earth was he going to do with all this energy he still had? He looked around the room for inspiration before his eyes fell on the laptop on his desk. Well, he did have a new ghost to write a file on…

He walked to his desk, cracked his knuckles and sat down to get started.

* * *

Danny rode to school the next day with his Math textbook in his lap. Unfortunately the book stayed closed the whole way, with his head lolled back and his mouth wide open: he was sound asleep.

"Wake up, Danny, we're at school," Jazz said, unbuckling her seatbelt.

He stirred sluggishly, turning his head the other way.

"Danny. Wake up!" She poked him sharply.

Her brother grimaced and blearily opened his eyes. "I'm up, I'm up…"

"Good. Dash is nowhere in sight, and Sam and Tuck are waiting for you over there on the steps. You should go meet up with them."

"Yeah," Danny unbuckled his seatbelt and opened the door, "I'm not afraid of Dash, but yeah, good idea…"

"Try to wake up before you fall over, Danny. Did you sleep at all last night?"

Danny rubbed his eyes, slinging his backpack over one shoulder. "Not much. I couldn't get to sleep for hours, and then I woke up thinking I sensed another ghost..." He rubbed at his eyes, knowing there were probably dark shadows under them. "I didn't feel any ghosts around when I got up, though, and nothing was on the Fenton Portal log, so I guess I was dreaming."

"You shouldn't be losing so much sleep, Danny," Jazz said, eyebrows drawing closer to each other. "You look awful."

"I'll be fine, Jazz," Danny said, ending his statement with a yawn.

"For now, yes, but prolonged stress, especially caused by sleep deprivation, is frequently known to cause—"

Danny interrupted her while scrubbing his eyes again, "Thanks, Jazz, but I've gotta go." He gave her a quick grin, half-turning away. "Thanks for the ride!" With that, he was hurrying away.

Jazz worriedly called after him, "Take care of yourself today, Danny!"

"I will!"

* * *

"That History assignment was crazy," Danny grumbled as he, Sam and Tucker trudged up the front steps of FentonWorks after school. "Half the places weren't labeled in the book."

"That's what the Internet's for," Tucker replied. "Frankly, though, I kind of agree that there were way too many places. How'd you do on Mr. Smith's test?"

Danny grimaced. "I was snoring like a baby halfway through. I knew most of the math and everything, but I wasn't able to finish it." Danny opened the front door and they all walked into the Fenton's spacious living-room.

"That's rough, man."

"Yeah."

Jazz's voice spoke up from the kitchen, "What's rough?"

"History homework and crummy math test," replied Danny.

"Do you need help with anything?" she asked, appearing at the doorway and looking at all three of them.

"No, everything's already being graded."

"What was the History homework about? Was it that map project you mentioned last night?" Danny nodded and Jazz sighed. "Did anyone else have trouble with it?"

"I didn't have the assignment," Sam said, not looking bothered by this revelation.

"I thought it was annoying," said Tuck. "We had to draw a map of western Europe from scratch."

"Why was it hard?" Jazz asked.

Danny and Tuck looked at each other, and then at Jazz. Danny said, "Why else is map drawing hard? The shapes were hard to get right, and the rules for labeling it right were as long as my arm."

Jazz sighed, looking patient. "You could have done it if you'd put effort into it, though, right?"

Danny looked uncomfortable. "Well, yeah. But I was really distracted, and the project was boring. Maybe if it hadn't been so dull I'd have paid more attention." He shrugged, trying to keep things casual.

Jazz said, "So basically if the project had been more interesting then you both might have had an easier time of it?"

Tucker grinned, nodding. "That sums it up pretty well, yeah."

Jazz folded her arms, an unusually crafty look reaching her eyes. "Tell me, what situations have you both found yourselves in where map-making might be important?"

Danny rolled his eyes at her teacher-voice and said, "I don't know, I've never been anywhere where I couldn't just find one on googlemaps." Tucker laughed and agreed.

Jazz was undaunted. "What about the Ghost Zone?" she challenged.

Sam grinned at the two boys. "You've got to admit that it'd be pretty hard to find anything on googlemaps there," she said dryly.

"You stay out of this," Tuck grumbled.

Danny, however, was looking surprised and thoughtful. "You know, it would be kind of handy to have some kind of map of that place..."

"Well, then, why don't you make one?" Jazz said, sounding pleased. "It would be great practice, and you could learn a lot about why map-drawers follow certain rules."

"I might, except that there are two problems: one is that none of us really have time." He glanced at his friends, and they both nodded to confirm his words. "Second of all, a map of the ghost zone would need three dimensions; these History maps only have two."

Jazz blinked. "Three dimensions? What do you mean?"

Danny said, "The Ghost Zone doesn't follow the normal laws of gravity and stuff. Doors to different dimensions and places float everywhere, and everything's always moving."

"Really?" Jazz asked, sounding surprised. "That's weird. Then again, I haven't even been there before. Why's everything moving, what direction is everything moving in? Do they drift in the wind, or something?"

Danny opened his mouth to reply, before closing it again, looking back at his friends. They sent him back equally bewildered expressions, and he said, "Actually, I have no idea. As far as we know, they just float around."

"Actually, guys," Tuck said, "it would kinda make sense if they floated in circles. Sometimes when we've gone through there are some doors I've seen on the way that are gone when we're on our way out. When we come again later, though, they're back."

"Like planet orbits," said Danny, a look of fascination dawning. "Dude, that's awesome, I'd never noticed that!"

"Obviously you hadn't," Sam said, but she was smiling. "You'd have mentioned it before if you had."

"How do scientists deal with mapping outer-space, Danny?" Jazz asked. When they'd started talking she'd looked like an older sister dutifully trying to convince her brother that something was good for him. Now she looked genuinely interested.

"They divide the sky up into quadrants," Danny explained in a rush. "We're always looking out from a single point in space, so to us the sky may as well be in 2-D. Because of that they just map it like they would anything else. Maybe our own portal door in the ghost zone is floating around a central point like the earth around the sun, maybe it faces a 'sky' of doors twenty-four/seven!" Danny looked excited now, eyes lit up with possibilities. "I haven't ever noticed the portal-door turning because we always head in the same direction to go to places further off, so maybe it doesn't spin on its own axis like earth or any other planet, and… guys, this is incredible!"

Sam and Tucker were both grinning, and Jazz smiled. "I think my work here is done," she said. "Now you all see why maps are so important?"

"Yeah, yeah," Danny said, looking so caught up in awe that he probably didn't even remember his poor grade on the assignment. "Hey guys, let's finish those essay-outlines real quick so we can get on to the ghost zone. Or, hey, do you want to work out there? We could head off any incoming ghosts at the pass and meanwhile—"

"Mom and Dad are both in the lab right now, Danny," Jazz said reminded him.

Sam rolled her eyes. "Yeah, and personally I kinda don't want to go in there weighed down by anything like textbooks."

Tuck said, "Forget weighed down, I don't think the Specter Speeder can even fit all three of us _and_ our homework in the first place."

Danny looked disappointed, but still hopeful. "Okay, I guess we should finish our stuff in the living-room for now… but Jazz, could you give us a yell when Mom and Dad come out?"

"Sure," Jazz said, turning back to the kitchen table. "You'll probably hear them coming out if you're in the living-room, though."

Tucker called after her, "Thanks anyway, Jazz, we all appreciate it."

"Yeah." Sam smiled as the three walked towards the coffee table, though it soon became more of a smirk. "You know guys, it's kind of weird—I mean, since this is the ghost zone we're talking about and all--but I'm kind of excited about this. We're like space explorers, only in the Ghost Zone, instead."

"Yeah," Tuck agreed. He unslung his backpack and plopped himself on the floor. "It's not like anyone else has really been to or tried to map the place. Not even your Mom or Dad, Danny."

Danny, whose expression had become strangely thoughtful, found himself grinning again and said, "Yeah, it kind of is. Who'd have figured that we'd find something this cool so close to home…"

"'Weird'?" Sam laughed. "You call that 'weird'? Reality check, Danny--your parents are _Ghost Hunters_."

Tuck grinned. "Yeah, if they aren't the very definition of weird, I don't know what is."

"I guess I kind of have to agree with that," Danny admitted. "Come on, let's get started on Mr. Lancer's paper." He turned and headed towards the living-room, all signs of a previous sleepless night having vanished with hopes of a potentially exciting project.

* * *


	4. Chapter 4

**Title: **Astronaut

**Author: **Zalein

**Total Chapters: **10

**Word-count: **23,202

**Genre: **General/Drama

**Characters: **Danny F., Sam M.

**Rating: **T for language.

**Summary: **_"I want to be an astronaut," Danny said automatically._

**Author's Note: **I already have all the chapters typed up and saved on my computer. I'll be posting them one at a time, about once a week. : ) Enjoy the ride!

* * *

**CHAPTER FOUR**

_The next day…_

"I'm sorry, Danny, I'm afraid I don't have any extra-credit projects you can do right now. There's going to be a research paper you might be able to do next week, though, how does that sound?"

Danny tried not to let his disappointment show, nodding instead. "I guess I can do that. Thanks, Mrs. Stravinsky." He started to turn to go, but the soccer-mom teacher held up a hand to stop him. Her other hand was spearing the base of her ponytail with a pen while she talked.

"Just so you know, Danny, I'm pleased that you're showing the initiative of asking for a chance to bring your grade up. May I ask what brought this on? You've never shown much interest before."

Danny blinked slowly, feeling like a giant spotlight was suddenly being shined in his eyes. "Uh… well, the career counselor said I had to do better in school if I wanted to be an astronaut…"

Mrs. Stravinsky nodded, her confused expression clearing. "Ah, that would explain it." She smiled. "It's amazing how much of a role history has played in the development of technology and space exploration."

Danny smiled uncertainly. "Yeah, uh, I guess… Jazz also mentioned something about maps and astronomy, and I've been trying to do some research." He didn't mention that Jazz had really been talking about the Ghost Zone. After all, trying to explain why he'd be having anything to do with its mapping was a can of worms he simply didn't want to open.

The teacher nodded quickly, giving him a knowing look. "Ah, Cartography. You know, the library has several books on the early explorers of America. They had to deal with a lot during those first few decades of mapping—are you interested in seeing the mapping and exploration process from a land-bound perspective?"

Danny blinked, and then nodded, shrugging. "Sure. Do you, uh, have any particular titles to recommend?"

She snagged a post-it-note pad from its family-photo-decorated holder, taking the pen back out of her hair and writing a few titles down. "Here you go. Also, there should be a section on astronomy you could look at. Have you been to it, yet?"

Danny looked at the list while she wrote, eyes following her pen. "I've seen it, but I already went out and bought copies of the good books a long time ago." Mentally he resolved to look through them again sometime soon—now that he thought about it, it had been months since he'd last actually opened one to read.

"Oh, that's good, then." She smiled, finishing and handing the note to him. "If you're interested in the history of cartography itself, I suggest you look up some of the old philosophers and scientists. They had strange versions of the world."

Danny nodded, pocketing the note. "Thanks."

Mrs. Stravinsky tucked her pen away again, leaning across her desk. "By the way, Danny, I really am pleased that you're making efforts to improve your grades. I've noticed that you've been tired a lot in class, and I think that if you were to try to get to bed earlier it would help a lot."

Danny opened his mouth, a sarcastic remark about fighting ghosts and sleep loss on the tip of his tongue. He closed his mouth quickly, reigning in his second and third replies as well.

The teacher paused and started watching him very carefully. "Danny, why have you been so tired in class lately?" Her tone was a little more casual than before, and Danny heard a tiny alarm bell go off in the back of his mind.

"I've, uh, had a lot of stuff going on," Danny said.

"Your parents mentioned last parent-teacher's conference that you'd been spending a lot of time with your friends…" Danny could vaguely recall that, but as he did so he also remembered that Sam and Tuck hadn't been having as much trouble staying awake as he was. That meant they weren't doing whatever it was that Danny was losing sleep to. Danny forced a smile and looked quickly up at his teacher, hoping she hadn't thought of that yet and cursing silently to himself.

"Well, yeah," said Danny. "I've, uh, also been staying online late a lot… that really eats away at study time, and before you know it, suddenly it's past sleep-time!" Danny laughed a little, but even in his own ears it sounded fake.

The teacher's voice stayed casual, but Danny had been watching her expression for changes, and he noticed a flicker of concern. "Danny… I know it's probably not my place to ask, but has everything been alright at home? Are there any problems that are interfering with your, ah, 'sleep-time'?" She quirked a small smile, trying to keep the conversation light, but Danny wasn't fooled.

"Nothing at all," he said, rubbing the back of his neck and keeping his smile in place. "Mom and Dad are obsessed with Ghost-Hunting, like always, and they sleep like normal people. Like, they sleep enough. It's just me who doesn't, so maybe I have insomnia or something." He closed his mouth very quickly again, aware that he was bordering on babbling.

"I see," she said, and Danny thought he saw her shoulders relax. Or maybe it was his imagination. "Well, I'm glad to hear that things are okay. Family problems are always rough."

"Yeah," Danny agreed, relief at her seeming to buy his excuse for sleep-loss making his smile a little more genuine. "I know. I mean, I wouldn't know, because we don't have problems, but I can imagine. Why would that kind of thing be bad for sleep, anyway?"

She sighed, unpleasant thoughts flitting across her face. "Well, for a lot of people there's a lot of noise that keeps them awake. For others, they keep getting pestered by family members, and for others, they worry about things that are happening between family members."

Danny thought about having woken up thinking his ghost sense had gone off when it hadn't. "Yeah, I can see how worrying might do it…" He trailed off, before realizing that the teacher was watching him with a very scrutinizing expression. After living with Jazz for several years he knew that 'something is strange and/or wrong and I'm getting worried' look like the back of his hand, and he didn't like seeing it on someone he barely knew at all. Especially someone who could contact his parents and sound the alarm that something, anything, was off.

After all, he'd worked hard over the past year to keep his secrets, and he wasn't at all eager for any of it to go to waste.

"So, I should probably be going," Danny said, shifting his weight from foot to foot. "Thanks for the book titles."

His teacher smiled, but there was still something a little off about her expression. "No problem, Danny. Anything I can do to help, I'm here for you."

Well aware of the fact that she wasn't just talking about books, Danny smiled and staged a hasty retreat.

* * *


	5. Chapter 5

**Title: **Astronaut

**Author: **Zalein

**Total Chapters: **10

**Word-count: **23,202

**Genre: **General/Drama

**Characters: **Danny F., Sam M.

**Rating: **T for language.

**Summary: **_"I want to be an astronaut," Danny said automatically._

**Author's Note: **I'm _so_ sorry for missing last week, guys. I thought I'd be able to, but I got too carried up in traveling and all these other things that were happening. Long story short, I'm now minus three wisdom teeth. The stitches will be out tomorrow.

To make up for the fact that I still owe you guys another chapter, I'll be posting an extra one during the week, along with next Sunday's proper update.

* * *

**CHAPTER FIVE**

Danny rubbed his forehead, trying not to think of the potential mess his meeting with Mrs. Stravinsky had just turned into. As if he didn't have enough on his mind, now he had to worry about her snooping and coming to dangerous conclusions. Especially if they were the wrong ones—after all, he wasn't ignorant to the gossip stories that swept through the school every once in a while about what Child Services sometimes wound up dealing with. If anyone decided he was having 'serious family problems,' his parents would undoubtedly wind up taking the brunt of the blow, and they didn't deserve that. He was the one keeping secrets, and they had never done anything to him but love him. Well, they were also eccentric in all things they possibly could be, of course, but hey, that was Maddie and Jack Fenton for you.

He was heading towards a hall that would lead him to the Cafeteria when he heard something that didn't mesh with the regular hall sounds. Danny paused, trying to ignore the air-vent's rattle and a distant cafeteria's low murmur to try to identify the sound. He wasn't able to recognize what it was at first, but when it came again he understood: it was a sniffle. Someone either had a very bad cold and was hiding out in some side-hallway to keep from spreading it, or someone was trying to cry without anyone noticing. Considering the quite obvious bully problems Casper High had, Danny was betting his money on the latter. Especially, he thought, since the sound was from somewhere in an apparently person-less corridor full of lockers and doors.

Danny sighed and started walking in the sound's direction, guessing that someone had been stuffed unceremoniously into a locker. The sniffles weren't very frequent, so it took him a good handful of seconds before he realized he'd already passed the unfortunate soul's location and was heading the wrong way. He turned around and started back, trying to narrow his search range down while listening for anything he might miss.

The faint sounds of crying had stopped when Danny had reached the middle of the hallway, but started again when he'd gotten almost back to where he'd started. He turned and frowned at the hall in general, before sighing again and scratching the back of his head.

"Hey," he called softly, "is anyone stuffed into a locker here? Bang on the door if you can, I can't tell where you are."

There was a moment of silence. Then Danny jumped in surprise when the Janitor's closet down the hall opened and someone about his age walked out, glaring at him. She was a skinny girl he recognized from his science class, though she usually didn't look as upset as she did now. Even from halfway across the hall he could see that her eyes were red and glassy, and could hear her voice tremble and quaver when she talked. "G-go away, Danny!"

What was her name again—"Hey, Bridget—are you, uh, okay?" He fought a grimace even before he finished talking, wanting to kick himself for such a stupid question. Of course she wasn't okay, he just didn't know what else to say to her.

"I'm f-fine," she sniffed, and her leaking eyes suddenly turned hard. "I'll be even better if you leave me alone, though." She turned abruptly and strode back into the closet, trying to slam the door behind her. There was a mechanism at the door's top that kept it from going too fast, though, so it closed with a defeated 'thhhhnk' instead.

Whatever he did, Danny knew it would be wrong if he simply left her. He walked to the closet door and stood outside, shifting his weight from foot to foot uncertainly. Then he quietly called, "What's wrong?"

"Go away!" She sounded faintly hysterical, and if that was how it was when the door was closed Danny wondered how she'd sound with it open. "I told you to leave me alone!"

Danny went quiet at that, wondering if he really should leave. It was none of his business what was wrong with her, and he was probably just making it worse by pressuring her. Before he left, though, he asked "Are you hurt?" He lifted his hands defensively in spite of the fact that she couldn't see him. "I'm leaving, I'm leaving, but I just need to make sure."

"I'm not _hurt_!" She snarled. He heard a sharp impact followed by a clatter, and assumed that some sort of bucket had been kicked against a wall. Her voice got louder as she talked, getting more and more intense until she was almost howling. "I'm _pissed off_, and I'm frustrated! Nobody's listening to me, nothing's going right, I'm going nowhere with anything and it's going to _stay that way_ forever and—" she abruptly choked off, sounding overwhelmed by emotion.

Danny had a sinking feeling in his stomach, and completely ignoring the fact that he'd promised that he would leave, he stepped forward and opened the closet door. She was slumped against a wall with her face buried in her hands, entire body shaking with the force of her sobs.

He rubbed the back of his head, suddenly wishing he'd listened to everything Jazz had said about psychology. He was no good at this. "You want to talk about it?" Danny offered tentatively, exhausting nearly the whole of his psych-knowledge in that single phrase.

Bridget's words were hard to make out through her sobs, which interrupted her every other syllable. "It's just—just… I w-want to be a l-lawyer, more than anything. _Anything!_" she repeated, clenching her fists against her face for emphasis. "But m-my parents, they're—they're goddamned h-hippies, they just—we h-have the damned money for c-college, but they s-say it's pointless, they don't believe I can d-do it…"

She drew a sudden, violent breath through gritted teeth, eyes flashing in the dim light. Suddenly her words were louder and rushed, all kept together like a stream from a burst dam. "They say I'd hate the arguing and the paperwork and the petty stuff about it but I won't, I know I won't, I _know_ I can do it and I hate them for trying to hold me back. They just don't want me to do it because they're artists and think I have some damn talent with it when I'm just venting. I only draw because I'm angry _at art_ and what it's trying to do with my life. And then that damned guidance counselor had the nerve to tell me my reasons for becoming a lawyer were emotional and impractical, like I have no idea what's going on in my own head, and, and—"

Danny, who'd stayed just inside the doorway listening to her stream of frustration, jumped when her fists suddenly dove for her own head, grabbing and pulling at her hair. When he saw what she was doing he made a sound of protest and moved forward to try to stop her. To his absolute surprise she suddenly stopped and lunged towards him, flinging her arms around him in a hug. He froze in place, elbows pinned to his sides from the hug and his expression a mask of shock. Her face was buried in his shirt and she did nothing more than tremble and sob, so after a moment he awkwardly patted her back, rubbing it in a way he hoped was soothing.

"I, uh, really don't know what to say…" he quietly told the girl crying on him. "The counselor kinda told me I'd have to start getting better grades if I wanted to be an astronaut, so I'm kind of mad at her, too."

Bridget gave a little hysterical giggle that shuddered unhappily. "S-she said the same thing to me! She said that having better English grades would help me more to be a lawyer. But what does English have to do with law? It's pointless and stupid and idiotic and, and…" she dissolved in another wave of tears, and clung to Danny a little tighter. Danny kept rubbing her back, murmuring something reassuring that made little sense.

Her frustrated crying was becoming quieter as time went on, and she made visible efforts to stop her tears. If the glimpse he'd gotten of her face in the hallway light was anything to go on, she'd already been in that closet for a long time before Danny had found her. By now she must have been exhausted.

"I'm just so pissed off…" she repeated sullenly, mumbling into his shoulder. "They all think they know what's better for me, and what I'd be happy doing, but I've already tried drawing. I don't want to do it for a living, it won't work out, and I won't make it like my parents did because they were a one in a million situation…"

Danny relaxed his grip a little, and her death-grip around him loosened. Taking advantage of this, he pulled back a little and stepped out of her hold enough to look at her. "… Well, you know there's more than a few million people in the entire US—if you wanted to, you could probably be another big hit."

"But I don't _want_ to be," she insisted plaintively.

Danny nodded quickly, lifting his hands as though to stave off another round of tears. "That's fine, that's good. Whatever you want to do is great. If you want to be a lawyer like you say you do, then you can do it. I've heard law is hard, but like they say, hard work beats everything."

She looked up at him, searching his face in the light coming from the door as though suspicious he might be lying. Then she sighed, folding her arms as though trying to cradle herself without seeming too obvious. "Thanks for believing in me, Danny. It's more than anyone else does."

Danny suddenly thought of his parents, and how he knew with utter conviction that they would support him in whatever he did. He tried not to let any of his thoughts show on his face, though—Bridget's parents were probably different than his. She'd be the one to know if they were, wouldn't she? All he said out loud was, "I'm sorry."

She gave another little hysterical giggle, but by now she was somewhat more under control. "Ha! I should be telling you that. Gawd, I've j-just cried all over your shirt… You didn't ask to hear any of this, anyway, why am I telling you…"

"Because I did ask, sort of," replied Danny. He was quickly sensing that it was time for him to go, and he turned and left the closet. The fact that she followed him closely and stepped away when they were out was proof that she had pulled herself together for now. "That's what friends do, isn't it?"

"Yeah, but I barely know you," said Bridget, unknowingly voicing his next thoughts. "I'm not like your friends, whatserface and Tuck. So like I said, sorry. But, uh, Danny?" She paused, taking in a deep, shaky breath, and letting it out slowly. When she was done she gave him a sad, but grateful smile. "… Thanks. I'm, you know, glad you were around and stuff."

"No problem," said Danny, smiling a little. It was good to have helped someone, even if he hadn't really planned to at the start.

"Good," she said breezily, obviously trying to put her recent breakdown further behind herself, "because I think everyone's at lunch, and we're probably late."

Danny's eyes widened, and he nodded quickly. "Crap, I almost forgot!" He started down the end of the hall he'd originally come in through, beckoning her to follow. "Come on, all the good stuff's probably gone, but we might still have some time to eat whatever's left…"

She nodded, and then stopped, lifting a hand to her face. Danny heard her footsteps slow, and he half-turned to see. "Hey, Danny—I'm, uh, gonna go fix my makeup before I go to lunch…" She bit her lip, rubbing what was probably the last of her mascara off with her hand. "I'll go in a few minutes, you go eat with your friends and stuff."

"You sure?" Danny said, though the idea of collapsing next to his friends with food was already quite appealing.

"Yeah, don't worry about me. I look like a wreck, though, so I, you know, gotta fix that."

"Okay. Take care, Bridget."

"You too, Danny." She turned and started striding towards the hall's exit opposite to his.

Danny walked backwards a few paces, watching her, and when she passed the janitor's closet without going back inside he turned and started jogging properly through the halls. If he hurried, maybe he would have time for something that would keep him going—so long as it wasn't mystery meat.

* * *

"Hey, Danny!" Sam said, shooting him a small grin over her book.

"Hey guys," Danny said tiredly, sitting down. Before he could say anything else Tucker cut in.

"Dude, where've you been?" Tuck pushed a tray in his direction. "I was about to start on your meatloaf for you, we thought you weren't going to show."

Sam pointed accusingly at Tuck. "You thought he wasn't going to show. _I _knew he was just running late."

Tucker said, "Hey, weren't you just complaining about wasted food and telling me I should start eating Danny's lunch?"

Sam rolled her eyes. "I knew he'd be late, but I didn't know he'd be in time to eat anything. Just because he'd show doesn't mean he'd have time to eat."

Tuck pointed a fork at her and opened his mouth to say something, but Danny interrupted saying, "Thanks for saving this, Tuck. I owe you one."

Tucker looked at Danny. "It's nothing, but dude? Try and come early next time. It was hard to juggle two trays at once." Danny nodded, digging into his meatloaf.

Sam closed her book—which she hadn't seemed to be reading anyway—and put it on the table. "So, Danny, did Mrs. Stravinsky have any ideas for an extra-credit assignment?"

"Next week," Danny said around a mouthful. "She said she'd have something available."

Tucker seemed doubtful. "And it took her over half an hour to tell you that?"

Danny shook her head. "No, though it did kinda take a while. What took me so long was that when I was coming back I found Bridget in the hallway. She'd been crying, so I stayed with her until she felt a little better."

"Bridget?" Tuck asked, sounding suddenly interested. "What's she look like again?"

"Fourth period science," Sam drawled. "She's that girl who always leaves her desk scribbled on."

"So she's an artist. I can work with that," Tuck said, a smirk forming on his face.

Danny coughed a little. "Actually, she wants to be a lawyer."

Tuck's smirk faded. "… That'll be a little trickier, but I bet I can find a way to use it…"

"She better not be one of those lawyers that those landfill companies and nuclear power plants hire to justify their senseless pollution," Sam growled, a hard glint appearing in her eyes.

"I don't think she will be," Danny said quickly. "Anyway, she was really upset, and she's okay now." An idea occurred to him, and he frowned. "Hey, she probably hasn't gotten any lunch yet… Do you think one of us should bring her something?"

Tucker shrugged, chasing some peas around his plate with a fork. "I don't know, man. You want to? She's probably not hungry if she's been crying for so long."

"Or she might be especially hungry," Danny pointed out, now sounding a little worried. "We could bring her something from the vending machine…" He winced, suddenly remembering. "…except that she's off in the girl's bathroom. Hey, Sam, could you—?" Big blue eyes turned pleadingly towards her.

Sam had crossed her arms and was giving him a flat look. "Why?"

"Because it's the right thing to do," Danny said seriously. "I mean, it's not like it's her fault she missed lunch."

Sam raised an eyebrow. "Actually, it kind of is. Wasn't she the one crying?"

Tuck looked as though he was trying not to grin. "You've got to admit she's right, Danny."

Danny sighed, staring at his plate unhappily. Sam's stubborn expression faded as she tried to tell herself he didn't look like one of the many kicked puppies she dedicated herself to helping every day, and she felt her resolve crumble. When Danny looked back up at her and said, "Sam, please?" she sighed, scowling and rolling her eyes.

"Fine," she said. "But only if you pay for the candy-bar. I'm trying to save cash."

Tucker rolled his eyes as Danny beamed. "It's not like you're exactly hurting for dough," Tuck pointed out.

Sam shifted a little uncomfortably. "It's the principle of it all!"

"Thanks, Sam," Danny said, and took an enormous bite of his meatloaf in an effort to finish quickly.

"Don't thank me," Sam grumbled. "You're probably right, we should bring her something."

"Wow, Sam!" Tucker grinned mischievously. "I didn't know you had a heart. It must have been buried underneath all that goth makeup and stuff."

Sam gave him a glare. "You know, I'm just going to ignore you said that."

Danny stood up. His plate was mostly empty, but he was still chewing. "Come on, the bell's going to ring any minute."

Sam picked up her book and sighed again, reluctantly turning to leave.

"You guys go on ahead," Tuck said, reaching for Danny's plate. "I'm still hungry." Danny swallowed and quickly grabbed his fork back, scooping up a few last morsel for himself before relinquishing his tray.

"Alright, see you," said Danny around a mouthful. He put his fork down and also turned to leave.

"Bye Tuck," Sam called over a shoulder.

* * *

Sam pushed the bathroom door open and spotted her immediately. The first bathroom she'd looked in had been empty, but second time was a charm: Bridget was in front of the sink-room's mirror, busy with an eyeliner-pencil.

"Hi, Bridget," Sam said.

Bridget turned to look at her, hesitating. "Hi."

Sam lifted a hand with a Snickers bar in it. "Danny told me you missed lunch. We thought you'd still be hungry."

Bridget looked surprised. "Uh, thanks… Sam, right?"

"Yeah."

"Thanks for getting me this." Sam handed her the chocolate-bar. "Uh, how much do I owe you?"

Sam shook her head. "Danny's footing the bill."

"Oh. Thanks," she said awkwardly.

Sam stood there for a moment, before she nodded to herself and turned to leave.

"Wait," Bridget said, "Did Danny, uh, tell you why I was crying?"

Sam stopped and turned. "No, he didn't."

Bridget said, "Oh." A beat of silence passed, and she forced a smile. "Career counseling woes, I guess."

"Oh," Sam said. "Do you have any idea what you want to be?"

"A lawyer," Bridget said, smile still pasted in place.

Sam nodded. "Cool…" She looked like she wasn't going to say anything else, before an idea occurred to her and her expression became suddenly very calculating. "You know, it might be really hard to become a lawyer, but there are a few animal-rights suits that—"

"I don't care if it's hard to become one," Bridget interrupted almost immediately, smile replaced by a bristling glare, "and to be really frank I'm a little tired of people telling me I can't do it."

Sam blinked in surprise, frowning a little. "I didn't say you couldn't, I was just going to say—"

"Forget it." Bridget said, putting the Snickers bar on the counter and folding her arms sulkily. "I don't want to hear any of it."

Sam scowled. "I wasn't going to say anything like that! I was talking about animal rights! Now if you're done crying your eyes out in your own little corner—"

"Oh, that's rich, coming from you!" Bridget snorted, avoiding her gaze.

Sam took a moment to process this, and when she did her eyes narrowed. "I come in here to give you a present to try and cheer you up because _you _missed lunch, and now you're calling _me_ the crybaby? What, because I'm goth or something? I don't believe you! No wonder Danny was the only one around to comfort you. You insulted everyone else, and Danny wouldn't leave someone alone if they'd thrown a brick at him!" Sam turned and pushed out the door, storming away without another word.

"Hey! For your information, I…" Bridget called after her, but the bell signaling the end of lunch blared out at just that moment. When it ended she wasn't talking anymore. Sam ignored it, stomping her way out of the hall and towards the one that had her locker.

* * *


	6. Chapter 6

**Title: **Astronaut

**Author: **Zalein

**Total Chapters: **10

**Word-count: **23,202

**Genre: **General/Drama

**Characters: **Danny F., Sam M.

**Rating: **T for language.

**Summary: **_"I want to be an astronaut," Danny said automatically._

**Author's Note: **I already have all the chapters typed up and saved on my computer. I'll be posting them one at a time, about once a week. : ) Enjoy the ride!

Notice: I'm going to be moving and settling down and family reunion-ing and everything the universe wants to throw at me over the next two weeks. Just saying.

(And yes, I know I didn't post that extra chapter last week… sorry about that. I'm posting two chapters tonight to make up for it.)

* * *

**CHAPTER SIX**

Danny was limping as he slipped into Mr. Lancer's class, gingerly seating himself in the back. Tucker was already there beside him, and a few seconds later Sam joined the two, setting her books on her desk with unnecessary force.

"How's Bridget?" Danny asked her.

"She's a moron," Sam replied coldly, "but she has the candy-bar."

"Oh," Danny said, quieting a little. "Sorry. Thanks for doing it."

"Yeah, no problem," Sam grumbled. She noticed Danny's pained expression and raised an eyebrow. "Are you that disappointed we didn't become best buddies, or did something happen?"

Danny grimaced. "It's nothing. Dash just pushed me into some open locker."

Tuck grimaced. "Dude, that's rough." Sam nodded in agreement, and Danny looked uncomfortable at the attention. Before they could continue, Mr. Lancer had started talking.

"Everyone please take out your essay outlines and have them on your desk. While I go around collecting them, take your Literature textbooks out and turn to pages 357 to…"

The three moved to comply, and the class went on in full swing. After an hour of reading and trying to decide what to write down for notes, the bell rang and Mr. Lancer called out last minute instructions for the day's homework assignment. Students were already standing up and pouring out of the classroom by then, including Sam and Tucker, and soon Danny was the only one left.

"Yes, Daniel?" the teacher said, raising an eyebrow in confusion. It wasn't unusual for Danny to stay after class, but it was unusual for him to do so without being asked to.

"Uh, Mr. Lancer, I'm trying to bring my grades up. Is there any extra credit project or something I can do?"

"To improve your English grade in general?" Mr. Lancer repeated, the other eyebrow lifting to join the other. His confusion gave way to a cautiously pleased expression. "I think we might be able to arrange something."

Danny smiled, looking both hopeful and nervous. "Great, uh, what is it?"

Mr. Lancer walked to his desk, pawing through some papers in search of a particular one. "Next week we're going to read the next act of _Macbeth_. If you complete the activity sheet I'll give you—this one—" He found the paper he was looking for and handed it to Danny, "—and write a one-paragraph analysis of the Lady of Macbeth's actions, then you'll have the credit."

Danny skimmed over the paper, eyes tracing the beginning of each question. "… Okay. When do I need to hand this in by?"

"You mean 'by when should I hand this in?" Mr. Lancer corrected, seemingly automatically, before shrugging. "Today is Friday, so you have the weekend to work on it. It would be ideal if you handed it in on Monday, but your deadline is Wednesday."

"Okay," Danny said, folding the paper and pocketing it. "Thanks, Mr. Lancer."

"My pleasure, Daniel," he said, smiling warmly. "I know my class may not be easy for you, but I really do want to see you succeed."

Danny smiled back, though he shuffled uncomfortably. "Yeah, about that—sorry I haven't been doing much 'succeeding' and stuff in school lately. I'm trying to fix that."

The teacher nodded. "I'm glad to hear this. If there's anything I can do to make things easier, please consider me as a resource."

Danny nodded. "Thanks, I'll ask if I need anything." He was turning to leave when he paused. "Hey, actually, I do have a question. I mean," he said quickly, "it doesn't have anything to do with resources or extra credit or anything, but…"

"What is it?"

"If I wanted to study Law, or something, how would English be important?"

Mr. Lancer blinked in confusion, but answered the question. "It would be very important. Unlike science and math-based careers, like engineering or accounting, law deals mainly with language and history. You need be able to write extensive papers and documents flawlessly. You need to know examples of what's been done before, and you need to be able to express these incidents in such a way that your arguments are unshakeable."

Danny thought about this. "So, English is kind of as important to a lawyer as… uh, Math is to an accountant? And maybe Physics to an astronaut?"

Lancer looked pleased that Danny had understood it so clearly. "That's exactly right."

"Oh," said Danny thoughtfully. "Okay… Well, that's what I wanted to know. Thanks, Mr. Lancer." He turned to go.

The teacher started straightening out the papers he'd displaced during his search. "That's what I'm here for, Daniel," he said with a mild grin.

Without really thinking about it Danny grinned back. "Well, still. Thanks."

"My pleasure." Mr. Lancer looked down at his papers, and Danny left for his next class.

* * *

Danny glanced around his parent's lab. Both parents weren't in the house just then, and wouldn't be back for at least a couple of hours, so Danny had plenty of time to go into the Ghost Zone and study the surrounding area.

He was a little disappointed that Sam and Tuck weren't with him; Sam's parents had persuaded her to go to a dinner party with the threat of a month-long grounding if she didn't. Meanwhile, Tuck had heard rumors of a new level on _Doomed_ that hadn't yet been released to the general public and was instantly besotted with the idea of hacking into it that very evening. Danny had been invited by each of them to join them in their respective activities, but he'd declined in favor of working on his own project: mapping the ghost zone. While he was there he would work on Mr. Lancer's non-extra-credit essay, planning to find time during breaks from watching the 'stars'.

Danny shrugged the straps on his backpack, putting his hand on the Fenton DNA-lock. The heavy ecto-fortified gates over the ghost-portal drew back with a _clank!_, and Danny walked into the green light as casually as a professional diver leaping off a diving-board.

A feeling of total weightlessness engulfed him when he reached the other side, accompanied by a feeling of intangibility that was foreign to his human form. The ghost zone was always a mess of contradictions: he still breathed, but no oxygen was truly necessary. Blood flowed through his veins, but it did not keep him warm. The place was clear in his memory, but it never felt familiar.

Danny took off his backpack and let go of it, not wanting it to disappear while he shifted to ghost form. Two circles of light appeared and the feeling of lifelessness engulfed him entirely, and he grabbed his bag again, floating a comfortable distance away from the gate. When he felt he had a good view of the surrounding Ghost Zone, he stopped and took out a notebook of grid-paper, a pencil, his English textbook. Then he got to work.

Twenty minutes later his concentration was interrupted by an ectopus trying to slip past him towards his portal home. Normally that wouldn't have been a problem, except that the fight had somehow ended with both notebook and textbook getting drenched in a foul-smelling green goo. Danny wiped a corner of his notebook and flung the goo away in disgust, glaring in the direction the ghost had fled to. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed something else, and he stared at his notebook. It was glowing.

"Just what I need…" Danny grumbled, closing his notebook and reaching for his backpack. After the fight he was in no mood to keep mapping the Ghost Zone or do homework. He'd work more on his essay tomorrow in the comfort of his own home, where '_floating-ectoplasmic-manifestations-of-post-human-consciousness'-_es wouldn't distract him so thoroughly.

That was for tomorrow, though. Right now he needed to vent some steam, and going on a ghost patrol downtown would be a perfect opportunity.

* * *


	7. Chapter 7

**Title: **Astronaut

**Author: **Zalein

**Total Chapters: **10

**Word-count: **23,202

**Genre: **General/Drama

**Characters: **Danny F., Sam M.

**Rating: **T for language.

**Summary: **_"I want to be an astronaut," Danny said automatically._

**Author's Note: **I already have all the chapters typed up and saved on my computer. I'll be posting them one at a time, about once a week. : ) Enjoy the ride!

I'm posting two chapters tonight, partly to make up for that week I lost, and partly because even I have to admit that chapter six was pretty uneventful.

* * *

**CHAPTER SEVEN**

"Your paper's glowing," Mr. Lancer pointed out, looking a little uneasy.

"Yeah, it is," acknowledged Danny, having been asked about it several times already.

"Is that safe?"

"Well, Jazz started glowing when I asked her to hold it, but I think our Fenton-Oven's processing radiation fixed that," said Danny, rubbing tired eyes. Mr. Lancer's own eyes, which were wide open, grew even wider. Danny quickly smiled. "Just kidding!" he said. He wasn't, really, but it would stop Mr. Lancer from staring at his paper like it might suddenly grow teeth and try to eat him. Sure, there was a distinct possibility that it just might try, but Danny had used the oven on it, hadn't he?

Mr. Lancer only slightly relaxed at Danny's assurance, and carefully put the paper down on the corner of his desk farthest from him.

Danny watched him. "I'm pretty sure it's safe to handle, Mr. Lancer. Very sure."

"Indeed."

Danny nodded and turned to leave. "See you tomorrow, then."

Mr. Lancer nodded. Before Danny was halfway across the room, however, he suddenly looked up and called, "Daniel, could you wait a moment?"

Danny stopped and turned back. "Uh, sure, but my next class is starting soon, so…"

Mr. Lancer waved a hand dismissively. "If it takes that long I'll write you an excuse."

"Okay," said Danny slowly, heading back towards his teacher's desk.

The man put his elbows on his desk and steepled his fingers. "Before class started today Mrs. Stravinsky took me aside and asked me a few questions about your wellbeing… Do you know why she might do that?"

Danny folded his arms, just barely keeping from groaning. "She thinks I'm not sleeping enough because I have trouble at home. But I _don't_, I just have insomnia, and it's nothing to worry about, I swear."

Mr. Lancer's eyebrows rose. "I believe you, Daniel. I've met your parents, and I've had more than a handful of students who've had, ah, difficult sleeping habits, as well."

Danny heaved a sigh in relief. "Thanks, Mr. Lancer.

"My pleasure, Danny. What I wanted to talk about was that when I spoke with her, she got me asking myself a few questions about you. Mainly along the lines of, 'Is there anything you need that I can give you to help you raise your grades?'"

Danny thought about late night chases through swarms of flying packaging-boxes, and tree-shaped coat racks that disappeared and glowed. "Thanks Mr. Lancer, but I don't think there's anything you can do…" he said slowly. His gaze snapped back to the present, and he gave his teacher a slightly confused look. "Everyone's been asking me if I need help or something—did the counselor say anything to you all, or something? Why now?"

Mr. Lancer shook his head, raising an eyebrow. "She hasn't said anything to me about offering to help you, but…" Danny watched his teacher collecting his thoughts and fought the urge to fidget uncomfortably. "… do you remember the beginning of your first year at Casper High, Danny?"

The boy did fidget now. "Not really. I remember my friends and I had a lot of fun in classes, though Dash had started picking on us then."

Mr. Lancer nodded. "You were getting better grades than Mr. Baxter was. All three of you were, in fact, but you were showing yourself to be exceptionally bright." He smiled warmly at his student, who looked embarrassed but pleased by the praise. "You would ask questions that some of your teachers had never been asked before. English wasn't your favorite subject, but even I could see you enjoyed learning."

Danny looked at his teacher's desk, taking it all in silently. Most of what he remembered from that year had to do with the first part being blissfully ghost-free and the second part riddled with ghost problems left and right. It was a little strange listening to a version that had no ghost-stories in it at all.

Mr. Lancer looked at his student for a long moment before continuing, sounding suddenly tired. "Some time towards the end of the first semester your grades took a nosedive. You weren't really the same student you were before, but your teachers remembered that once you'd been interested. Now that you're showing interest again… I suppose we're hoping that you might enjoy learning again." Danny blinked and looked up at him, and the man shrugged, as though at a loss for anything else to say.

"But I do like learning," Danny said blankly. "I'm just usually too tired to do it right, so it's hard."

"Then we're hoping you'll find the energy for it to come easily, again," Mr. Lancer amended simply.

"Oh." Danny nodded slowly to himself, a little surprised that the idea of him having been 'smart' was so hard to fit in his self-image. He was always getting bad grades, and he was never really the best at anything… Anything except fighting ghosts and finding all new ways to defeat them. Yes, when it came to ghost hunting, Danny was better at that than anyone else.

Sensing that his student was quickly becoming wrapped up in his own thoughts, Mr. Lancer leaned back in his chair and glanced up at a wall-clock. "You still have a couple of minutes until your next class, Danny. Do you want a hall-pass, or do you think you can make it?"

Danny looked at the clock and shook his head. "No thanks, I'll get there in time." A few seconds ticked by, and he made no move to go. "Hey, uh, Mr. Lancer… thanks."

The man's eyebrows rose. "For what?"

Danny shrugged uncomfortably. "You know, for teaching me. And stuff."

Guessing that the 'and stuff' had more to do with what had just been said than anything else, Mr. Lancer smiled at his student again. "Any time, Danny."

"Yeah," said Danny, "so… right. I'll see you next class." With that said, he quickly left to go to his next subject.

* * *

Unfortunately for Danny, Math class wasn't as nearly a pleasant experience as Mr. Lancer's class had been. It had started with their graded tests being handed out, and when Mr. Smith had called Danny's name he'd watched his student approach with an unreadable look. Danny, a little wary under the scrutiny, had waited until he was seated before looking at the grade. The paper's corner crinkled almost immediately around the 'F' as Danny clenched it in anger, remembering how he'd fallen asleep and left half the questions blank. He folded the test and slipped it between the pages of his textbook to store until later, and it was a struggle to keep from snatching it back out and tearing it in two.

After the tests were handed out Danny had to fight to keep still, because the class had suddenly become one of the most irritating classes he'd been to all year. Each question asked by a classmate seemed loud and careless, even when it was just Tucker asking about a new equation's variable. The air was too hot, the teacher was too slow to answer, the grade hidden in his book was too present on his mind, and he was too tired to do anything besides wonder if math had really ever been as easy for him as Mr. Lancer had said it was.

After the Longest Class of the Year had finally finished, Danny found himself waiting (very reluctantly) for the other students to leave. As soon as there were only about two students left, Danny marched to the front of the class, and asked in the most controlled voice he had, "Mr. Smith, is there some way I can re-take the test? I can do the problems just fine, but I fell asleep while we were taking it."

Mr. Smith looked at him through his square glasses, and Danny knew he was only barely keeping from glaring back at his teacher's unforgiving gaze. "I'm sorry, Danny, but I can't help it if you fell asleep during the test. You're not supposed to be sleeping in class one way or another—perhaps next time you'll be able to keep it from happening again, hmm?"

Danny stood there for a moment, but he was too angry to think of an acceptable reply to say. He managed to grit out a 'thank you' that he didn't care if his teacher heard or not and strode towards the door without another word. He passed Mr. Lancer, who was on his way in, but just then he wasn't in the mood to give even his favorite teacher a greeting, instead making a beeline for his locker. His mood was foul enough that he didn't see the foot stuck out in front of him in time, and he tripped spectacularly. In his tumble he dropped his books, hit his head on the floor, and lost his pen in the forest of legs that was suddenly eye-level with him.

Dash's shoes came into view. "Did you have a nice trip, _Fenturd_?" There was a pause, and Danny heard a loose page being pulled free from his fallen book. He didn't see it happen because he was jerkily pushing himself to his knees, focusing on feeling his head for any serious injuries. There were none, though Dash's voice was definitely making his headache worse. "Geeze, _Fentina_, no wonder you're so clumsy—if you're as stupid as this then it's amazing you can tie your own shoelaces!" Some of Dash's friends—also football players—chuckled darkly at his joke.

Danny pushed himself to his feet, not bothering to look for his pen. He stood to his full, unremarkable height and held a hand out to Dash, who was holding Danny's book and test. "Give it back, Dash."

"Now why would I want to do that?" Dash smirked, looking very comfortable in the space the hallway of students had instinctively drawn away from. "After all, you shouldn't go throwing your books around like that, _Fentoni._ It's not very nice."

"Give it back now, Dash!" Danny snapped, too angry to care that he was showing weakness by rising to their bait.

"Or what, you'll tackle me?" Dash mocked. Cronies attached to letterman jackets laughed out loud, now, watching the goings-on and finding them worthy of ridicule.

Danny clenched his fists. "Not today, Dash—give me my damned book back now or I'll do more than just tackle you!"

The quarterback found the very idea of that hilarious, and started to laugh. "Good one, _Fentonoodle_—make sure you're strong enough to hold your book first, though, or you might hurt yourself getting over here!" More of the crowd broke into laughter, and Danny gritted his teeth so hard that they hurt. Just as he was about to lunge forward and do something to wipe Dash's smirk off his face, a sharp voice cut through the noise.

"Alright, break it up!" Mr. Lancer was striding through the crowds with a look that brooked no argument. Mr. Smith wasn't far behind him. "Anyone caught staying here after the bell rings goes straight to detention after school." The crowd started to disperse. Dash thrust the book so hard at Danny that he almost doubled over, barely straightening up in time to glimpse Dash's already disappearing form.

"What are you all waiting for? Time's running out!" Mr. Smith teacher barked sharply, and the hall started emptying more quickly. Satisfied with a job well done, he turned to the classroom while Mr. Lancer lingered in the hallway.

"Are you alright, Danny?" the teacher asked, looking concerned.

Danny didn't look up, his knuckles white from their grip on the book he was holding. "Yeah," he said shortly, walking to his locker and practically yanking it open.

Mr. Lancer nodded slowly, sensing that his student didn't want to discuss it. Instead of pressuring him further, he turned and disappeared back into the Math classroom. Danny ignored him, putting his book and test in the locker. His mind was still on the fight, though, so it was several long seconds before he realized he was glaring at his textbooks without processing which one he needed next.

He sighed, reviewing his schedule in his head before choosing the proper book and taking it out. The hall was starting to empty around him as students hurried this way and that, anxious to reach their next classes on time. Danny knew he should probably join them, but he also knew that if he tried going now he'd only wind up snapping again at the first minor irritation he found.

Because he was so wrapped up in his own thoughts he didn't notice the Math classroom door open until Mr. Smith spoke up. "Danny, do you have an excuse for falling asleep in my class?" he asked warily.

Danny stared up at him, his mind having trouble making the 180 degree turn from all-consuming frustration to believable-excuse-finding. _'What does he want me to say?'_ Danny wondered angrily. _'That I stayed up half the night hunting some psychotic ghost downtown when everyone else was asleep? Fat chance of that!'_

Mr. Smith watched his student for a few more seconds before he checked his watch, doing a poor job of hiding his irritation behind a frown. "Mr. Fenton, your other teachers have been telling me about your sudden change of heart to try and improve your grades. In hopes that we can encourage this trend, and that you will keep trying to improve, you may retake your test tomorrow afternoon. Is that understood?"

Still dazed by the sudden turn of events and the adrenaline from the barely-avoided fight, Danny forced himself to nod and say, "Yes, sir."

His teacher didn't look convinced, and his head twitched a little as though fighting an urge to glance back into the room. "Good. Come here after school is out and I'll have a test ready."

Since he was still caught between deciding if he liked the second chance or disliked having to do the work all over again, Danny nodded jerkily and hurried away from the Worst Period of Class Ever as fast as he could.

* * *


	8. Chapter 8

**Title: **Astronaut

**Author: **Zalein

**Total Chapters: **10

**Word-count: **23,202

**Genre: **General/Drama

**Characters: **Danny F., Sam M.

**Rating: **T for language.

**Summary: **_"I want to be an astronaut," Danny said automatically._

**Author's Note: **I already have all the chapters typed up and saved on my computer. I'll be posting them one at a time, about once a week. : ) Enjoy the ride! We're nearing the end...

* * *

**CHAPTER EIGHT**

"So you can't make it tonight?" Tuck asked, sounding disappointed. He had to speak up in order to make himself heard over the hallway's end-of-the-school-day noise, especially since he and his friend kept getting separated by people walking between them.

"Sorry, but I can't," Danny confirmed, also having to call louder than usual. He paused to let a pair of girls pass so he could see Tuck again, saying "I really want a good grade on that make-up test tomorrow, and that means plenty of studying and an early night."

"But you're sure you can't come?" Tuck prodded. "There weren't any ghost attacks over the weekend, so there isn't really a reason why they'd choose tonight to attack. You could bring your homework, help me level up for a couple of hours, do a quick review, and then before you know it you're back home and dozing already!"

Danny shook his head reluctantly. "Thanks, Tuck, but maybe next time."

Tuck's encouraging smile faded and he said seriously, "Okay, man. Next time we'll have more time, and I guess you're right: homework's what's important now. Do you need help with review or something?"

Danny grinned a little. "Thanks, but no thanks—Jazz is going to be nagging me so much that she'll be tutoring me without even realizing it."

Tuck laughed at that, nodding in agreement. "Dude, tell her the test is full of word puzzles and 'mentally tricky' and stuff. If you do, maybe she'll take the test for you!"

Danny laughed with him, but was distracted from replying when he almost ran into someone with a familiar face. "Bridget—hi!" he said cheerfully, realizing too late that she didn't look quite as happy as he did.

She glanced up while stepping around him, nodding distractedly. "Oh, hi Danny." She said, already walking away.

"Hold on, wait!" Danny said, taking a few steps after her. She was going in the opposite direction that most of the other students were heading, though, so it was a fight against the crowd. "Is everything okay, and stuff?" he asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she said, still walking and not putting much effort into the small grin she gave him. "Thanks, Danny—bye."

"Uh, bye," said Danny. He stopped his attempts to follow her and watched her move out of sight. While he walked back to Tuck he shrugged and gave his friend a blank look. "She must have been in a hurry. I just wanted to ask how things were."

"She seemed kinda distracted," Tuck said, looking in the direction she'd gone. A mischievous grin crept across his face. "Maybe she's finally noticed how totally buff I am and is struggling to come to terms with it!"

Danny rolled his eyes, laughed, and shook his head.

* * *

"Hey, uh, Jazz—do you have a moment?" Danny said, keeping his tone neutral.

Jazz stopped, one foot on the staircase leading upstairs. She looked at his books and said, "What is it, Danny? Trouble with homework?"

He nodded and turned the textbook in his hands to show her, even though she was too far away to really read. "You're good at math, right?" Seeing her look, Danny grinned and quickly continued, "I mean, I know you are, but could you help me out with this?"

Jazz turned and stepped towards him, taking the book and reading the section's titles. "Factoring quadratic equations—what do you not understand?"

Danny shrugged. "I kind of get it all, but there aren't many practice exercises. I've already memorized the ones the book has, but I want to get a bit more experience… So, could you…?" Taking great pains to play it out properly, Danny carefully unleashed the most dangerous weapon he had in his arsenal: puppy eyes of devastatingly hopeful doom.

Jazz squirmed under his gaze, the walls around her resolve blasting apart from the attack. "Well, ah, I have some extra reading I need to do, but…"

Danny somehow managed to both smile and keep his hopeful-eyes-move in full swing. "I just need a few more problems to practice with. Could you scramble a few numbers and orders around, just enough that I have enough to try for each factoring method…?"

Jazz avoided his gaze, but it was effective even when no eye-contact was being made. "Well…"

"And if you could, you know, check them afterwards…" Danny finished delicately, before figuratively sitting back and waiting for his results.

They weren't long in coming. Jazz looked at the book without really seeing it, struggling with herself over whether or not she should help him now or refer him to her old Math notes. Her reading wasn't going to be important until a few days from now, when they actually covered the material, so she had time to do it later. Danny, however, was going to have his test tomorrow, and he'd been working much harder lately on his schoolwork than he usually did, and positive reinforcement to these habits would probably benefit him for life if they made a lasting impression now, and wasn't she always trying to help him anyway, and…

"Well… alright. Do you have a pencil?"

Danny smiled and handed her one he'd been waiting with. "Thanks, Jazz, you're the best."

Danny drilled math problems until dinnertime. When he went to bed afterwards he was feeling very ready for his test the next day.

* * *

Danny shivered violently, already sitting up in his bed before it even crossed his mind to try pulling the covers tighter around himself. When he opened his eyes in the dim light his suspicions that it wouldn't have done any good were confirmed, and he waved a hand halfheartedly to disperse the vaporous fog coming from his mouth.

Danny glared at the red-numbered clock beside his bed. It was three in the morning, and his test was tomorrow. Things like this had happened so many times, and they were what had led to the grade-problems he was having in the first place. He used to simply sigh and bear it, telling himself that that was the job, and that someone had to do it. Now he was furious, wondering when it had become his job to lose sleep and watch his hard work at school crumbling because some random ghost had decided to slip through. Why couldn't his father have installed some sort of fail-safe lock over the Ghost Portal? Why couldn't someone else go zooming after each stupid ghost that came through? Why did the ghosts come through in the first place?

Danny was already taking his own complaints apart in his head while he turned to his ghost-form, but the resentment was still there. He knew his father had done the best he could in locking the Portal, and it wasn't his fault if it occasionally malfunctioned. He knew that the fact of the matter was that there simply wasn't anyone else around who was _qualified_ for the job of protecting Amity Park, though Valerie came close. He knew most of all that the ghosts would never listen to him if he asked them to stay away, and that it was a losing battle to try and convince them.

In spite of his forgiving train of thought, he felt anger simmering through him, ready to lash out and explode at any small annoyance. All he knew was that tomorrow was his make-up exam for a test he'd failed due to ghosts, and that it was unfair for him to have been woken up when he needed sleep now more than ever. He was tired of waking up to his ghost sense in the first place, and he wanted it to stop.

He checked to make sure his Fenton-Thermos was both in place and empty before he floated through his bedroom wall to the outside. He would go and see whoever had escaped the Ghost Zone tonight. Considering how angry he was, it was not going to end well for whatever poor soul had wandered over to the human world at all.

* * *


	9. Chapter 9

**Title: **Astronaut

**Author: **Zalein

**Total Chapters: **10

**Word-count: **23,202

**Genre: **General/Drama

**Characters: **Danny F., Sam M.

**Rating: **T for language.

**Summary: **_"I want to be an astronaut," Danny said automatically._

**Author's Note: **I already have all the chapters typed up and saved on my computer. I'll be posting them one at a time, about once a week. : ) Enjoy the ride!

Special thanks to one of my readers for the idea of this new ghost.

* * *

**CHAPTER NINE**

The ghost was another one Danny had never seen before, and was dressed up in rubber boots and farm-stained overalls. He also had a straw hat on his head and an ear of corn in his hand. Danny mentally labeled him as 'the Corn Ghost' almost at once. It made sense, considering that they were in some sort of food-storage warehouse, one that was filled to the top with corn.

"I used to grow me up some extra fields of corn every year so I'd have enough money t'feed m'dogs. After all, hard times and all that," the ghost was saying, holding the ear of corn almost reverently.

Danny was tense and on full alert, because in spite of the nostalgia the ghost's words had, the farmer's tone had a hard, bitter quality that set every alarm bell in Danny's head ringing. Ignoring how the hairs on the back of his neck were standing up as best he could, Danny said reasonably, "Well, that was nice of you," because really, there wasn't much else to say.

"Yeah, it was real nice," agreed the Corn Ghost. He looked at the corn for another long moment before his fist slammed closed, crushing the corn and letting the pieces not trapped in his hand fall with a wet 'thud'. He rounded on Danny, starting to growl, "Then them damned _corporate slobs_ took my farm and my livelihood, turning me bankrupt! I found a job, but it wasn't enough! I couldn't buy any more food for them—my dogs were dying! They were starvin', and I barely had enough food for m'self! I had to do something!"

"Right," Danny said, "that's cool." He sounded cold and bored in the face of the other ghost's sudden fury, even though he wasn't cold or bored at all. He was still angry and was wishing that the story would hurry up and finish so they could fight.

"So then I remembered that old legend o' Robin Hood, who stole from the rich and gave to the poor who needed it. I says to m'self, Robin Hood looked after his own, and he was a hero. Then I says, if my own need me, then I need to look after 'em, like Robin hood did. That's why I started stealin'."

"Like you're about to now?" Danny said.

"Yeah, like 'm about to do now," the Corn Ghost said firmly, his eyes glittering with obsession. "M'dogs are long dead, but there are all them poor people out there who need food, y'know? So it's only m'God given duty to help them, isn' it?"

"There wouldn't be enough homeless people in _three_ Amity Parks to need a whole warehouse of corn like this," said Danny flatly. "And even if there were, this isn't the way to do it. There are support centers and homeless shelters and stuff, and soup kitchens and—look, you just can't steal and give stuff to the poor, because no matter why you're stealing, it's still wrong. You don't even know who you're going to give it to yet!"

The Corn Ghost was livid, yelling "You sayin' I got no right to look after m'own?!"

Danny was only too happy to yell right back, "I'm saying you don't even know who your own are!"

The Corn Ghost roared in fury, pointing wildly at Danny. "Colonel, boy, attack!"

Danny dove to one side, not knowing what the Corn Ghost was doing but not wanting to be in the way of it. He was gone just in time, as a shaggy glowing dog the size of a small horse dove through the air he'd just been occupying. As soon as all four paws had hit the ground the dog had turned around and was lunging for Danny again. Danny leapt into the air, flying two dozen feet up and hovering in place.

Before he could get his bearings or fire any shots, Danny was suddenly very aware of one unusual thing: nearly every crate of corn around him was still at eye-level with him. He looked blankly at them, before realizing (very unhappily) that they were floating.

And the Corn Ghost was floating with him, looking about as smug as anything Danny had ever seen. Danny wanted to go home and forget this ever happened, but even more than that he just wanted to punch this ghost's shit-eating smile.

Out of nowhere there was an animalistic snarl beneath him before a pair of jaws snapped around his ankle. Pain exploded from the area in a rush of agony. Danny cried out and stomped down on anything he could reach of the dog, but he may as well have been swatting it with a feather. Nothing seemed to bother it, and it took Danny reaching down and slapping at its eyes before it let go enough for him to wrench himself free. There was no way he could put any weight on his ankle now—glowing green ectoplasm mixed with blood leaked freely from the wound, and his cautious attempt to move the joint resulted in enough absolute pain that it left him breathless and dizzy.

The Corn Ghost guffawed at Danny's injury, putting his fists on his hips. "That's what happens when I look after m'own, kid. Try it sometime, you might find some friends that'll stand with you through rough times like these."

Danny focused a glare on him so blazingly furious that some distant part of him was registering that the green light from his face was shining brighter. "I have friends," he spat, "and it's because I care about them that I don't drag their butts out of bed to help me fight."

He knew what to listen for this time, and when a snarling growl suddenly grew much closer than he wanted, he catapulted himself forward a few feet, still glaring lividly at his opponent.

The Corn Ghost's gaze softened the tiniest bit, and he turned his gaze to watch the one dog the ghost had shown land on the ground again, growling up at the ghosts still floating. " If y'say so, kid. 'S good that you got friends. People who do the right thing usually got nothing else to hold onto besides them—like me and m'dogs, fer instance, they're all I got. I was never goin' anywhere great, but that was okay, because we were still together like always," he said gently, his tone becoming almost kind.

Danny floated there, saying nothing at first. For some reason the ghost's latest words had triggered something deep within him, something that made his blood boil and his ears sing with rising, mindless rage.

He wasn't here to talk. He didn't care about this ghost's story right now, and he didn't care if they had anything in common. He didn't care if the ghost thought himself to be a hero, and he didn't care that the ghost hadn't been able to make anything of himself in life. He didn't even care that the ghost was being almost nice right now, and if he'd ever wanted to make friends with a ghost, now might actually be a good time.

All he cared about was that he was missing out on time to sleep he'd thought was guaranteed for him to have, sleep that he knew he would desperately be needing tomorrow. He knew with absolute certainty that it wasn't fair for this ghost to have dragged him all across town just to tell him his life's story, then attack him and try to rob this warehouse blind. He knew it wasn't right for this to be happening, and he knew he was so damned angry right now that he was ready to snap. He knew that he was tired, his mood was too foul for him to be likely to sleep any time soon, and he knew that all of this, every single thing just then, was entirely the Corn Ghost's fault.

"Hey, Corn Ghost," Danny suddenly said, his voice too low and eyes far too bright for anything about him to be safe.

The Corn Ghost was oblivious to the fact that a predator was in his midst, and he said, "Kid, I might see a bit of m'self in you, but there's something you gotta learn here and now: m'name's Robin Hood, now, as that's what I've promised m'self I'm gonna be known as since I became a ghost. Understand?"

Danny waited a beat, completely ignoring what he'd just said. When he spoke again his teeth were gritted and one eye was twitching dangerously. "Corn Ghost, from now on no ghosts are allowed to attack Amity Park after nine PM until morning. Or during school hours. Not any time at all, but those times are times I'm going to make sure are ghost-free for as long as I can."

The Corn Ghost folded his arms, looking amused. "That's pretty ambitious, kid, 'specially since everyone in the Ghost Zone knows how easy this place is to get to. Y'got any ideas for how to make it work?"

"No ghosts are allowed. I'm stopping this now."

Now the ghost looked a little pitying, tilting his head to one side. "No offense, kid, but I can't exactly see you makin' anyone listen."

The Fenton Thermos was in his hand faster than the eye could blink, and Danny found himself struggling to contain his rage. "Then watch how I do it," he said tersely, and using his strange, unsettling fury-speed he'd suddenly acquired, he uncapped the Thermos and aimed it at the ghost. The man barely had a moment for his eyes to widen in surprise before a pillar of thermos-light was sent blazing through his midsection, distorting his form and sucking both him and his dog into the vortex.

As soon as both farmer and dog were gone the floating crates of corn fell like apples from a weak tree. Danny jammed the switch off and slammed the cap back on, clenching the thermos tightly in both hands.

"From tonight on," he said, because he needed to say it out loud, no matter whether the ghost could hear him or not, "any ghost who attacks when I can't deal with them stays in the Fenton Thermos for a year. For five years," he amended, voice rising until he was almost shouting, "for ten years, for as long as I damned well feel like it until they finally stop!"

There was a ringing silence in the warehouse after his shouting stopped. He didn't know how long he stayed floating there, among the disheveled crates of rescued produce, and he didn't really care. He stayed there until he felt exhausted from staying so rigidly still, clenching the thermos as though the ghost might claw his way out through cracks in the metal if he wasn't careful. The feeling had left his hands by then, and when he released his grip on the thermos he had to work his fingers back and forth to get the ectoplasm-blood flowing.

Danny was exhausted, and it wasn't because of the fight he'd just gone through. He was emotionally and mentally exhausted as well, and what he wanted more than anything, anything in the world right now was to crawl into bed and sleep in the next morning like he would on a Saturday. Tomorrow was a school day, though, and he couldn't do that, he had a test tomorrow, and he'd lost enough sleep as it was.

Danny checked the dog-bite on his ankle and gingerly poked the hazmat-fabric sticking to the already-forming scab. He didn't know what to do for it, and would probably have to wake Jazz up for help when he got home and saw it in better light. It was a good thing he'd been planning to float back home anyway, or this would have been a lot longer night than it already was.

Danny turned to float away from the warehouse before he paused again, tired eyes narrowed in sudden thought. "The Corn Ghost has a pet Corn Dog," he said out loud. He thought about it. "Corn-attack-dog," he amended, and his shoulders shook with a brief, half-hearted laugh. Unfortunately he was too tired to find his thoughts more amusing than that, and without saying anything else he floated away and towards home.

* * *


	10. Chapter 10

**Title: **Astronaut

**Author: **Zalein

**Total Chapters: **10

**Word-count: **23,202

**Genre: **General/Drama

**Characters: **Danny F., Sam M.

**Rating: **T for language.

**Summary: **_"I want to be an astronaut," Danny said automatically._

**Author's Note: **Well, people, it's been an awesome ride. Thanks so much for your reviews and comments, they've really brightened things up for me. 3

* * *

**CHAPTER TEN**

Mr. Smith gave him a stern look the next day, but said nothing except "Take a seat and we'll begin."

Danny collapsed onto a seat in the empty classroom's front row, leaning on his elbows and blinking tiredly. Soon a piece of paper was placed on the desk's plastic surface, and Danny mumbled a 'thanks' while taking a pencil out and reading the page's top lines.

Twenty minutes later he stood and handed the test back. Mr. Smith took the paper and immediately started grading it. Seeing this, Danny sat back down and laid his head on his desk until Mr. Smith called his name.

Danny looked up, his eyes taking a moment to focus properly. "Whu—what?" The teacher held up the paper. Danny rose from his seat and stepped towards him to take it, seeing a neutral '84' scrawled at the top as he did.

Mr. Smith watched him. "You did better this time." Like the grade he'd just given, his voice was neutral.

Danny nodded, rubbing his eyes. "Yeah, I reviewed a bunch with Jazz. Good thing, too…" It wasn't that the test questions had been hard—it was that drilling the problems with her had gotten him to the point where he could do them in his sleep. Considering how tired he was just then, that was very good indeed.

Mr. Smith nodded in approval. "Jazz is a good student. You might want to keep reviewing with her until you've picked up some of her good study habits."

Danny nodded, folding the test and putting it in a pocket. He was too tired to think of anything to say besides, "Thanks a lot for letting me retake the test, Mr. Smith," and nod vaguely to his teacher's response. He turned and left.

Since he'd gone straight to Mr. Smith's classroom after school, the hallway with his locker was deserted by the time he got to it. He took a couple of books he'd need for homework that day out and closed the locker. As he was turning around he noticed someone coming down the hall, and when he saw who it was he grinned. "Hi, Bridget."

Bridget looked up and hesitated, her footsteps faltering before continuing. "Oh… uh, hi."

Danny wondered if he'd said something wrong. "What's new?"

"Oh… nothing…" She shrugged.

He nodded. "Same here. Well, except that I just retook a test with Mr. Smith, but… yeah. Not much else." She didn't have to know about his shouting at long-since-deceased-farmers in the dead of the night.

She gave him a tight grin and nodded, walking past him without stopping. "Sounds cool. Was the test easier the second time?"

"Yeah," said Danny, turning to face her while she walked. "Or, uh, a little. How about you, has English been looking up?"

Her pace slowed a little, and Danny realized that he'd said the wrong thing. "… I guess it has," she said, shrugging. "Not that it matters anymore, to tell the truth."

Danny frowned a little. "Why doesn't it matter?"

Bridget paused before speaking, as though cursing silently, and it occurred to Danny that she might have been avoiding thinking about it. "Well, you know, it's…I guess my parents were right," she said. Danny noticed that her tone was cold and brittle, like a too-thin layer of ice on a pond. "I guess I'm just not cut out for the life of a lawyer, or whatever." She grinned without any real cheer, and snorted a little. "Figures."

"Uh…" said Danny, a little taken aback, "… did something happen? Why the sudden change in heart?

She folded her arms haughtily, obviously trying not to look upset. "I went to this law-firm company yesterday. To look around," she explained, "on my own, when my parents weren't around to say anything and get me looking at all the bad sides the job might have. I met a few lawyers, and… well, it just, it looks like a crap job. Any job I'd want to have would take years to study for and—gawd, if I'd wanted to spend that many years of my life in college, I'd have become a med student. And most of the job really is just that hellish amount of paper work, and…" She trailed away, pressing her lips together unhappily.

Danny nodded slowly, feeling out of his league again. "Well… it's your choice, whatever you want to be."

She waved a hand impatiently, saying sharply, "Yeah, but—just… damnit!" Bridget scowled and looked away, while her waving hand went to her face. Danny saw her eyes glistening a little and tried not to silently agree: when he'd called over to chat with her, the last thing on his mind had been to make her cry. She continued to speak. "I just… I hate that they'll think they're right. Mom and Dad'll be so _smug_ when they find out, I just know it, they'll hold it over my head for years, and… And I don't know what I want to be now, y'know?"

"I'm sorry," Danny said, not really knowing what he was apologizing for. "It sounds pretty rough."

Bridget nodded, pretending to fuss with her hair while she wiped her eyes. "It is, yeah," she said, "so… uh-huh. See you, Danny. Good luck with bringing your grades up to become an astronaut or whatever."

Her tone was colder than he'd ever heard it, but Danny nodded in spite of it. "Thanks a lot," he said quietly. "See you." She turned and kept walking down the hall. Danny walked in the other direction, trying not to feel irritated by how quickly his relatively good spirits had faded through the conversation, as though her mood had somehow been as contagious as it was bleak.

* * *

"Hey, Danny!"

"Hi Danny!"

"Hi Sam, hi Tuck," said Danny wearily.

"Dude, you look like crap," said Tuck bluntly. "Was the test that bad?"

"No, the test was fine. I even got an 84 on it." He was interrupted immediately by his friends' _Awright!_ and _That's awesome, man!,_ and his expression brightened a little. "I met Bridget on the way out, though, and… well, she was upset over something, and now I feel down, too."

"Man, that sucks," said Tuck sympathetically. "Was something wrong?"

Danny shrugged, making a face. "Yeah, but it wasn't anything I could help with."

"Then forget about it," said Sam, sounding authoritative. "It's her problem in the first place, and if it's about that whole career-counseling thing then she'll just have to deal with it like everyone else."

"Yeah, but…" said Danny.

"Hey, Tuck, Danny," Sam interrupted, overriding the ghost-boy's weak protest and glancing around for possible eavesdroppers. She saw none, and went on. "You guys still want to go try mapping the Ghost Zone, right? I called Jazz earlier, and your parents are out for the afternoon, so how about we try today? After all, I don't have much homework, and unless someone assigned a term paper or something, I bet neither of you two do, either."

"I'm in. I don't have any homework at all," said Tuck, smiling smugly. "I did it during a free period."

Danny grinned at the idea of spending the afternoon with his friends in the Ghost Zone. "Well, I've got to go to Mrs. Stravinsky and see if she has an extra credit assignment available before we go, but I don't think it'll be due tomorrow or anything. Unless it is, I'm in, too." Tuck held out a hand for a high-five, and after the gesture had been exchanged three ways they headed off towards the History classroom.

Mrs. Stravinsky was grading papers when they found her. She smiled and nodded when Danny asked about the extra assignment (a little distantly, Danny thought,) getting a post-it note and jotting something down. When she handed it to him Danny saw it was a research-paper prompt, so he thanked her and pocketed it. By the time he left Danny was wondering if she was a little more impersonal than she had been last time, before deciding that he liked it more this way and leaving it at that.

After leaving school the trio went to Danny's house, trooping upstairs for some extra blank paper before their trip down. All three of them shrugged off their heavy backpacks while they were up there, each pile of books making a heavy _'whump'_ upon meeting the floor.

"Hey, Danny," said Sam, seeing that her bag had almost landed on a Fenton Thermos. "The light on that thing says it's full—should we empty it on our way down?"

Danny turned to look. "Huh? Oh, that? … I can't remember who's in that one, anyway—check the date to see how long it's been full, will you?"

Sam picked it up, turning it in her hands. "It says it's been full since last night. If you were out hunting then no wonder you were falling asleep all through lunch."

Danny's eyes widened comically, and he said, "Oh man, I can't believe I didn't tell you guys! Last night there was another new ghost, and his corn-dog attacked, and I told him that—"

"Wait, corn-dog?" Tucker repeated, raising an eyebrow. "His 'corn-dog' attacked you? Do I even want to know what that stands for?"

Danny gave him a look. "He was in a warehouse full of corn, Tuck. I'm calling him the Corn Ghost, and he had a dog. I'm calling it a Corn Dog." Sam laughed and Tuck rolled his eyes at Danny's tone, unembarrassed by his own suggestive phrasing. Danny scratched the back of his neck, looking uncomfortable, and his friends quieted to listen. "So anyway, I kind of lost it last night and told the ghost that I'd be leaving him in that thermos for a year for having woken me up. I also said I'd do the same to anyone else who woke me up or attacked during school hours…"

"Wow, man," said Tuck slowly. "You must have been pissed. Are you actually going to do it?"

"Danny, don't you think a whole year is kind of extreme?" said Sam, looking doubtful.

"I'm not going to do it," said Danny, sitting down on his bed. "I mean, you're right. A year's way too long for something like that. Besides, I don't even think a thermos would last that long without recharging, and it can't recharge when it's full, so…"

There was a moment of quiet, before Tuck said, "That kind of sucks—I mean, that would have been a good idea. Like a ghost jail, except with shorter and simpler terms."

Danny accepted the thermos Sam offered him and grimaced, saying, "That makes me sound like Walker. I don't want to keep ghosts locked up for fun—I just… you know, want them to stop interrupting me all the time."

"You don't sound like Walker," Sam assured him, "If you start running around and making rules up left and right, though, _then_ you'll sound like him. Right now you really only have one rule, and it's a fair one. So, are we going to set him loose on our way down, or what?"

Tuck nodded, agreeing with her. Danny sighed, standing up and looking at the thermos. "Yeah, but I don't really want to just let him out…" He trailed off, looking thoughtful. "Huh—you know, this thermos this might not last a year or whatever, but it would last way more than a couple of weeks. What if I started leaving them in the Thermos for a week?"

Tuck said, "That doesn't sound nearly as bad as a whole year. In fact, I could even write a program for you that would remind you when their time was over for you to let them out."

"I like that idea," Sam said. "It's practical, humane, and it'll stop them from bullying you like they are. Way to fight back, Danny." She gave him a smile.

Danny smiled back and pretended his face wasn't feeling hotter than it had been before. "Thanks, Sam…" He paused. "Uh, I mean, thank you too, Tuck—a program like that would, uh, help a lot."

Tuck looked from Sam to Danny and smirked knowingly. "No problem, Danny." He turned abruptly and made to leave the room. "I'll just leave you two lovebirds to find the paper alone, shall I? Meet you two downstairs!" Instantly he was gone from the room.

That didn't stop two shouts from chasing him, yelling "We're not lovebirds!"

* * *

"We'll have to start over from scratch," Danny decided, looking at the Ghost Zone around them. "I tried to do a rough sketch earlier, but everything's changed since then. Tucker, what time and day does your PDA say it is? We should do this periodically for a while before we try going anywhere else for a different angle, because trying anything more complicated than this will probably just confuse us when we're starting." Danny folded his old drawing, putting it away. When his friends didn't reply he looked up, catching them trying to hide odd looks. Danny fidgeted self-consciously. "Uh, what?"

"Dude," said Tuck. "Where did all that come from? You sounded all… science-y and stuff. Were you channeling your Dad there, or something?"

Danny rolled his eyes. "It's just astronomy stuff. I like it, okay? So, Tuck—time and date, please." Tuck took out his PDA and rattled off the data Danny had asked for while Sam took out a notebook to write it down. Danny absently listened to her write, staring out at the Ghost Zone around them. When she was done he handed out pieces of paper, asked them each to map out as thorough a map as they could from what they saw, and sat down on the Portal's edge to doodle with them. They were each facing different directions to cover as much 'sky' as possible, and Danny found his mind wandering while his hands moved on their own.

It was a little weird, he thought; he'd always liked astronomy, and when he was younger the stars had been the coolest thing out there. When he'd gotten his powers, though, he'd realized night after night just how far the stars really were. He'd also slowly realized that he'd never be able to reach out and touch them no matter how high he flew. Of course that wasn't news to him—he'd always known that the stars were hundreds of billions of miles away, and that reaching too close to them probably wasn't a very good idea in the first place. Still, though, flying through the sky at any time of night and day had given him a different perception of space; he'd always been able to approach the things he saw below and around him. They were reachable—they were real.

With an unpleasant feeling Danny realized that he didn't like the idea of staring at dim points of light for the rest of his life. The science was fascinating, but it dealt with things so far that he'd never reach them alive, and so old they were probably gone already by the time he saw them. Danny's pencil over the paper paused, and he wondered why these thoughts were so depressing.

A flicker of distant motion caught his attention, and Danny latched onto it with his gaze. It didn't seem very important, just some sort of rock or random object floating past distant doors in the far-off Ghost Zone. Danny chuckled a little at the similarities between it and a shooting star, and ironically thought to himself that he should make a wish. He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again the object was gone.

It was strange, how comfortable it was to sit here, staring into the Zone. It was so comfortable that time seemed to fly faster than ever, and all too soon Sam was standing up (standing sideways? Standing upside down? Gravity was unheard of here, it seemed,) saying she was done.

"I'm as done as I'm probably going to be, too," agreed Tucker. "We're coming back later, right? Do we need to make it this detailed every time we come?" he asked, turning his chart around for them to see.

Danny looked at his friend's sketch and smiled at a connect-the-dot hippopotamus his friend had drawn between stars. While Sam looked at it and laughed, he shrugged. "We probably won't, because that stuff's probably too far away for it to mean anything useful. Thanks guys—do you want to head back home?"

"Only if you want to," Sam said with a shrug.

"Well, I want to go back," Tuck said. "I'm hungry."

"Okay, let's go back," Danny said. He glanced down at his chart, starting to bend the paper to fold it in half. Before he could his eyes were caught on a few smudged marks he hadn't remembered making. "… Actually, how about you guys go on ahead—I want to correct my stuff before I go back in. Help yourselves to the fridge, you know where Dad keeps the emergency ham."

Sam snorted and rolled her eyes. "Yeah—thank goodness we also know what's safe and what's not." She handed her chart to him, accompanying it with a small grin.

Tuck smiled for different reasons, absently handing his own chart over, too. "Yeah—anything that's meat is safe, and anything else there that isn't is toxic waste!"

Sam folded her arms in mock-confrontation, saying "So says Mr. I-don't-need-to-worry-about-cholesterol, here!"

"Oh please, Sam, I…" Tuck's words were lost as he stepped through the portal and vanished from view. Sam strode after him, clearly already working up a returning volley before she even knew what he was saying. Danny watched them go with a fond smile, shaking his head a little.

After a moment he looked back down at his chart, then at the Ghost Zone. He saw a few 'stars' he'd drawn further away from neighboring 'stars' than he should have, so he erased those and drew them properly after he corrected his smudge. Then he saw another error, then another, and then another. Ten minutes later he was finally folding his own chart in half and moving to fold Sam and Tuck's with his, before curiosity made him pause. He opened Sam's chart and held it up to the Ghost Zone his friend had been facing, comparing the two.

That 'star' was a little off to the left, and those few stars were kind of bunched up and too far away from that one, and those two stars were at the wrong angle to each other, and… Twenty minutes later Danny was closing that chart and moving on to Tuck's, smiling again at his friend's hippo constellation but moving to erase it regardless.

It really was strange how nice and comfortable this place was. He knew he didn't actually have much reason to be as comfortable as he felt, because after all, no-one really knew anything about this place. While he'd beaten every ghost that had come out of it, he still had no guarantee that there wasn't something bigger and meaner still left out there.

Even with all that in mind, Danny thought as he guided another stray dot back to its proper place, he still felt more at home here than he ever had in front of a telescope. This was what he liked doing. Sure he knew that venturing into the Ghost Zone and dealing with all sorts of ghosts had been one of the hardest things he'd ever done, but it had become second nature to him so quickly that it was a little terrifying. It was almost as though it was a part of him, now. Like it was something that he'd acquired a love for, and that he wouldn't—couldn't—give up.

Danny sighed, lifting his pencil with a slight frown. It was strange, the turns his life had taken since the accident. It was almost fate. Almost as though…

Danny straightened bolt upright, clenching his hands without noticing the paper crinkle. His eyes were wide with excitement as they swept over distant floating doorways without taking them in. A smile dawned on his face, starting small and growing big. Pieces and thoughts were falling into place behind his beaming grin, and his expression was becoming almost too big for his face.

It was more clear to him in that moment than it had ever been before. He'd always loved the stars, but even when things had been at their easiest they had never truly been within his reach. Ghosts, however, had always been a part of his life since literally day one. He couldn't push them away, he couldn't hide from them, and even if he went through with his recent 'jail' idea, it still would never stop them completely. He knew that instinctively—to him, it was already a fact. Ghosts were in his life, and they weren't leaving.

Danny looked down and realized he was clenching his hands so hard the maps were almost tearing. He quickly tried smoothing the papers out between his palms, not paying much attention.

Maybe it was time to stop fighting the fact that ghosts were a part of him, and that he'd never really be rid of them. Maybe it was time to embrace them instead, and find some way to be at the top of a game he _could_ play, instead of chasing something he wasn't likely to ever really reach.

Sure, Danny knew that bigger, meaner ghosts would come in time, and that the Ghost Zone was probably going to have him tearing his hair out after a few weeks of frustrated charting and seemingly random patterns. That was fine—outer space in the human world wouldn't have been any different. And at least in the Ghost Zone, he could kick the stars giving him so much trouble!

Folding the maps in a hurry, Danny propelled himself through the Ghost Portal and charged through the empty lab with barely a glance at the stairs he was taking two at a time. When he burst into the kitchen, he skidded to a halt, spotting his friends immediately. Tuck was coughing on a mouthful he'd half-inhaled at Danny's sudden arrival, and Sam's hand was covered in a drink she'd spilled. They both looked alarmed, and Danny was oblivious.

"Guys," Danny started, "I'm not going to be an astronaut anymore.

"I'm going to be an ecto-naut."

* * *

_The end._


End file.
